Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

BILL PRESENTED

WELSH CHURCH (BURIAL GROUNDS) BILL

"to amend the provisions of the Welsh Church Act, 1914, relating to burial grounds and for purposes connected therewith"; presented by Mr. H. Morrison, supported by Major Lloyd George, the Attorney-General and Miss Wilkinson; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed—[Bill 28.]

ADJOURNMENT

House, at its rising this day, to adjourn till Tuesday next.—[Mr. James Stuart.]

Orders of the Day — COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE [MONEY]

Resolution reported:
That the purposes of any Act of the present Session to increase the amounts payable out of moneys provided by Parliament for the purposes of schemes under Section one of the Colonial Development and Welfare Act, 1940, and to extend the period during which certain of such schemes may continue in force, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys so provided of any increase in the Sums payable out of such moneys which is attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session substituting, for the limits imposed by the said Act of 1940 on sums to be paid out of such moneys for the purposes of such schemes, the following limits, namely,—

(a) as respects any such schemes, seventeen million five hundred thousand pounds in any financial year, and one hundred and twenty million pounds in the period of ten years ending with the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-six;
(b) as respects schemes for promoting research or inquiry, one million pounds in any financial year,
and extending to the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-six, the time during which such schemes, other than schemes for promoting research or inquiry, may continue in force.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

CLAUSE 1.—(Amendment of 3 and 4 Geo. 6, c. 40, s. 1 (1).)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

11.7 a.m.

Sir Wavell Wakefield: On this Clause, I would like to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if, under the scheme, facilities can be provided and payments made for the development of aerodromes, and air communications, and technical training connected therewith. Clearly, if aerodromes and air communications are developed in a Colony, that will provide facilities for technical training for natives and others adjacent to the aerodromes. Is that purpose included in this Clause and in this scheme; or is it proposed to use some other fund for the development of aerodromes and air communications?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): The answer to the question is "Yes." Aerodromes and all other forms of communication are certainly within the scope of the Bill, and my hon. Friend will be interested to see, if he looks at the schemes already approved for the West Indies, that a good deal of money has been spent. I, myself, had the pleasure of opening the aerodrome at Belize which has been provided out of the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund.

Mr. Edgar Granville: May I ask the Colonial Secretary a question before we finish with this Clause? This sum of money is to be authorised and spent, and supervised for the Colonies by his Department. Has he any scheme in mind for consultation on a geographical basis, as it were, with the Dominions concerned? As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, his Department was responsible for obtaining this money from the Treasury. There will be no financial contribution by any of the Dominion Governments. Surely, however, that will not exclude the right hon. and gallant Gentleman from taking the opportunity to consult with those Governments, particularly on questions of agriculture, market research and so on?
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows that the Prime Minister of South Africa has, from time to time, suggested a scheme for closer co-operation between the Dominions and the Colonies on a geographical or a geo-economic basis. While one did not expect the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to include a scheme of that kind in this Bill, or to


set up a Commonwealth Council or a Colonial Council which would facilitate co-operation with the Dominions, the hope is expressed that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, when he has this Measure, will take the opportunity to have the closest consultation with his opposite numbers in the Dominions Governments. It is desirable to achieve the closest co-operation, not only on this question but on the question raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Swindon (Sir W. Wakefield), the question of airfields and all ancillary communications, such as those referred to by Lord Reith, at the Empire Communications Conference. I feel that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is to be congratulated on this Clause, but I hope he will show some practical vision by trying to deal with this matter as a whole, as a Commonwealth and Empire matter, and not merely within the narrow confines of the Colonial Office in Whitehall.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman replies, may I raise another point on this Clause? Are we to understand that moneys allocated under this Bill can be spent on agricultural development in the Colonies and Protectorates? As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, a very excellent scheme has been put into operation in the Arusha area in Tanganyika, where many thousands of acres have been laid down to wheat and other forms of foodstuffs for the natives. It is quite obvious that, although we want to develop the Colonies in other directions, it is essential that the basis should be that of a great agricultural community. I am not quite sure, although I think it is possible, that moneys can be voted or used under this Bill to assist the natives to learn the latest forms of agriculture, and, if possible, to assist them in getting the newest forms of mechanical machinery which is so essential now, if agriculture is to be properly developed.

Colonel Lyons: Before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman replies to the questions which have been put to him, may I raise this point? We know that climates and conditions generally differ widely, and that what applies to the social and economic progress of one place, may not necessarily

apply to another. But, I believe there is a field where there is a good deal of common ground, and in which progress already made in one Colony might be considered in relation to another. I want to ask whether the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's scheme provides some kind of machinery for such co-ordination; whether advantages already achieved in one Colony, can be applied to another Colony, so that there may be co-ordination on what is common ground between them.

Colonel Stanley: May I reply first to the important point raised by the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville)? Of course it is our intention to keep in the closest possible touch with the Dominions upon these matters and already, I think, we have an increasing scale of co-operation. There is an interesting experiment in the Pacific, which we are starting now, of a joint medical service between Fiji and New Zealand, for the Pacific islands, for which they are responsible. Of course, the hon. Gentleman will recollect the statement that I made on behalf of His Majesty's Government now nearly two years ago, that we welcomed the formation of these regional commissions, where exactly the kind of co-operation which the hon. Gentleman wishes, would find a suitable place. It is, indeed, a most important point that he has stressed, and one that we have constantly in mind.
The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) asked whether, under the provisions of this Bill, money could be spent for agricultural development. The answer, emphatically, is not only that it can be spent, but that it must and will be spent; that, in fact, it is one of the chief ways in which, I anticipate, these funds are to be spent. The hon. Member is quite right. Whatever else one tries to do for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Colonies, as far ahead as we can see agriculture will be their means of livelihood, and the prosperity of the greater number of these various territories, will always depend upon the greater prosperity of agriculture. I think that through the medium of this Fund, by better education, improving water supplies, taking measures to prevent soil erosion, and improving not only husbandry but animal breeding, we can do a great deal indeed to better the standard of life of the peasant cultivator all through the Colonial Empire. My


hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Leicester (Colonel Lyons) will remember that in the Second Reading Debate, I referred to the appointment of Sir Frank Stockdale as Adviser on Development to the Colonial Office. I did, indeed, anticipate that one of his functions certainly would be that to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred, namely, bringing to the notice of Colonies either promising schemes or successful experiments which have been carried out by another Colony. Exchanges of that kind will, no doubt, be of the greatest value.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Remaining Clauses ordered to stand part of the Bill.

11.15 a.m.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Provision for reasonable facilities for natives.)

So much of subsection (2) of section one of the said Act as requires the Secretary of State, before making any scheme under that section as respects any colony, to satisfy himself, in a case where the scheme provides for the payment of the whole or part of the cost of the execution of any works, that the law of the colony provides reasonable facilities for the establishment and activities of trade unions and that fair conditions of labour will be observed in the execution of the works, shall not have effect unless the law of the colony provides also reasonable facilities for the natives themselves to be trained for and to share in the carrying out of such works either alone or under European supervision.—[Sir W. Wakefield.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir W. Wakefield: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The purpose of this Clause, which has the support of my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) and Greenock (Mr. McNeil), is to ensure that there will be reasonable facilities for natives themselves to be trained for, and share in, improvement works, either alone or under supervision, which may be carried out under the provisions of this Bill. Its purpose, also, is to strengthen the 1940 Act, and to give power to the Colonial Secretary, which he does not appear to have under that Act, to ensure that where money is being spent on any scheme in any Colony, adequate vocational training facilities should be provided for the natives there. Not only

ought there to be such training facilities for natives; there also ought to be proper opportunity for the natives to carry out the technical work for which they have been trained, and which they are competent to carry out. For example, in Kenya there are vocational and native training facilities and opportunities for natives to carry out the results of their training—some of them, for instance, are driving engines—and the same thing exists in the Belgian Congo.
If, as my right hon. and gallant Friend has said, money is to be spent on communications, then quite clearly it is desirable that in all Colonies there should be opportunities for vocational and technical training, in order to do the kind of work that is done successfully elsewhere. In such technical trades as house-building, there are splendid training and vocational schemes for the natives in certain Colonies and, having been trained, the natives are able to carry out all kinds of work on house-building. If there are not these opportunities, first for training and then for achieving the results of that training, the full scope of this Bill will not have been fulfilled. I realise that the wording of this Clause may not be such as to achieve what my hon. Friends and I have in mind, but, if that is so, I hope appropriate words will be included in the Bill to provide the natives with such facilities and opportunities as I have described.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I wish shortly to support the Motion which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Sir W. Wakefield). As he properly pointed out, what we desire to do is to increase the powers of the Colonial authority, and to lay upon it the additional obligation of seeing that, as and when money is being spent on works, natives should be able to participate in those works, either after preliminary training or by actually sharing in them. The wording of this Clause, as my hon. Friend has said, may appear to be a little obscure, but we understand that it is the only possible way in which we can ventilate this matter to-day. We are by no means wedded to this form of words, and if the Minister accepts our suggestion, we have no doubt that the Parliamentary draftsmen can put what we desire into much better form.
I, personally, have no bias against Colonial trade unions, because they are led, in the main, by able and extremely


intelligent men, but I find that many European members of these unions—perhaps not unnaturally—are extremely anxious to preserve their standard of living as against that of the natives. That kind of thing, however, must not be allowed to stand in the way of the development of our Colonial territories and the forward march of the natives who live there. We suggest that the authority of the Governor of a Colony or Mandated Territory, or whoever happens to be responsible, should be strengthened by the knowledge that there exists in an Act of Parliament a provision to allow natives to be drawn in wherever possible, before public money is spent. In our recent journeyings through Africa, we talked with a large number of people, natives and Europeans, and we found that this was a burning question. In some of the areas where it was essential, for example, that houses should be built, the European trade unions insisted that they themselves should build them, even though the houses were for the natives.

Colonel Stanley: Was that in the territories to which the Bill applies?

Mr. Hall: Not altogether. It certainly applied to Southern Rhodesia, which does not come under the Bill, but we also found it in Kenya, which definitely does. I saw a housing estate at Mombasa where the houses erected for the natives were some of the worst we had seen, though they cost several hundreds of pounds. In another area, in a self-governing Colony, which would not come under the terms of the Bill, the natives, under European supervision, had built the houses at a remarkably low cost. For less than £100 a house average, a beautiful estate has been built which impressed us very much.
We suggest that the authority at Whitehall should be behind what is the desire, I think, of every Member of the Committee, to see that in these territories, where money is being spent, the natives are drawn in to the full. They may not have reached the standards of craftsmen here, or even in South Africa, but after training they can do extremely good work and it seems unfair that they should not be allowed, by the circumstances that I have described, to learn to take their full share in the work that will be done. I

press the point for this if for no other reason that it is essential that their economic status and purchasing power should be raised. That cannot be said if they are continually kept down and not trained or helped. Whether these words are accepted or not, I hope that words can be embodied in the Bill to assist towards that very desirable end.

11.30 a.m.

Mr. McEntee: I am not sure about the wording of the Clause, but the hon. Members who support it have said that that is of secondary importance to the desire that is behind it. If the Minister agrees with the desire, I am sure that he will find a way of giving expression to it. The short experience that I had in Tanganyika and Uganda, gave me the impression that the purpose of the Clause is a sound one. I saw a very high standard of education achieved by the natives who were fortunate enough to get admission to a certain college, but the opportunity was too limited. As far as I could judge, those who attended were the sons of chiefs. They seemed to have a monopoly. There were, in addition, some technical colleges or schools where those who attended were not all the sons of chiefs—perhaps some were the sons of minor chiefs—and they also achieved a high standard of technical skill. I can speak with authority in regard to those whom I saw in the woodwork section. I am certain that, if a wider opportunity were provided, they could achieve a standard of skill equal to that of the Europeans. I saw work done of which any of the young men in our best technical colleges might be proud.
The only thing that impressed me unfavourably was the narrowness of the scheme, and the lack of opportunity for a larger number of natives to get the benefit which it appears to me the Clause would offer. I am sure, if the opportunity could be provided, the natives would profit by it and would be able to take full advantage of it. I met one native in Uganda who was a man of outstanding ability, and many of those working under him showed very great promise. A high standard has been achieved in training accountants and medical men, and I am sure that, given the opportunity on a wider scale, they could achieve very great things indeed on the industrial side of life.

Captain Cobb: I am sure everyone agrees on the desirability of extending such suitable technical and vocational training in the Colonies as exists now, and of providing better facilities. I stress the word "suitable," because we might, possibly, go rather too far in our enthusiasm, and end up by doing mom harm than good. Suitable technical and vocational training is desirable in most of the Colonies that we administer. I imagine, however, that the Secretary of State would find himself in a great difficulty in accepting the Clause, because it seems to me that he would be precluded from giving his consent to any scheme unless vocational facilities and training were available in the Colony. The result might well be that he would be obliged to withhold his consent from a development scheme, in a Colony where such a scheme is most urgently needed. I imagine that it is his intention to provide, or to increase, facilities for technical and vocational training, and this will come within the purview of educational development.

Mr. Creech Jones: It would be unfortunate if the proposed new Clause were adopted in its present form. There are many schemes which are desperately urgent at present and these would be unduly delayed. Apart from that, the effect of the Clause would be to weaken the existing provisions, under the 1940 Act, in regard to trade unionism. That Act has, on the whole, worked reasonably well, and it would be unfortunate if anything were done to weaken its effect. I am in complete sympathy with the trend of the discussion, that we must go all out for the training of Africans and other Colonial peoples so that they can build up their own countries and have at their disposal all the technical resources that can be made available. The problem we are up against is not only the extension by legislation of technical facilities, but also certain social conventions, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) has referred, under which Colonial peoples who have the skill and technical resources are not permitted to operate in their trades and use their skill to the advantage of their country. That is a social convention which certain European trade unions have established and it must be destroyed. I doubt whether mere legislation will help in the breaking through of that convention. I agree with

the general trend of the discussion, but I hope the Colonial Secretary will not accept the proposed Clause in the form in which it is presented because it would weaken the position with regard to trade unions established by the 1940 Act.

Mr. Edgar Granville: I am sure that the Colonial Secretary will welcome this Debate, although, it the Clause were passed, I am not sure that it would secure the object which the designers intended. I am sure that the Colonial Secretary will interpret the general sense of it, and give expression to it, the best way he can. I imagine that some of his difficulty will be a shortage of instructors in some of the Colonies. We have seen during the war, the large number of men who have come here from the Colonies not only to serve in uniform, but to study engineering, technical research, and so on. They will go back to their countries with the knowledge they have gained. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is anxious that the general idea behind the new Clause shall be carried out, and to see that men in the Colonies are given the fullest opportunities for vocational training, he will require a larger number of instructors from this country. The reverse process may also be necessary, and students may have to be given the fullest opportunities to enjoy the facilities for the highest form of instruction which can be gat in this country.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: It seems to me that I have given a wrong impression to the Committee of what we have in mind in this new Clause. It is true that we have emphasised the words "training for" as well as "use in" in connection with the works that are to be set in motion as the result of the moneys which will be granted to Colonies through this Bill. We do not, however, by any means imagine that everybody has to be trained under this new Clause before he can take part in any work which has to be done. All we ask is that, wherever possible, and where the job is a technical one, natives should be trained if there are not enough of them to take their proper share of the work. The last thing we want to see is work held up, while natives are being trained. We are going to open up many of the Colonies by the building of aerodromes and so on, and possibly there will be repair shops set up in many places. The fear is that the Europeans


may keep the natives out of these shops and that the natives may be confined to menial jobs, with no chance of making progress. In that sense we want to see more of them trained. There are very many schemes and works that may be undertaken which natives, with very little training, or by simply working under European supervision, can be fitted to undertake. I hope that the Secretary of State, who is, I feel sure, sympathetic to the idea, will find some form of words to strengthen the hands of the authorities in the Colonies in this direction.

Colonel Stanley: I am glad that we have had a Debate on this interesting subject, but I hope that the hon. Gentlemen who supported the new Clause, will not press it. I assure them that it would have exactly the opposite effect to that which they desire. The only effect of the new Clause as it stands would be to relieve any Colony which provided no vocational training of the obligation that already exists with regard to trade unions and the payment of fair wages. I, therefore, regard the moving of the new Clause as providing the Committee with an opportunity for discussing the twin subjects of vocational training and the variety of jobs which are open to the inhabitants of the various colonies. On the question of vocational training, no addition to existing legislation is needed to carry out the obvious wishes of the Committee. We all realise the paramount necessity for technical training. Colonial administrators in the past have done what they can in the matter. Their trouble has not been lack of will and of desire; it has been lack of finance. It is exactly that lack which this Bill will remedy. I am certain that one of the things which we shall do first in examining the ten-year programmes of the various colonies, is to see that, in those programmes, sufficient allowance has been made for this extremely important branch of development.
It is interesting to realise that, certainly in Africa, the war has brought a good deal of assistance in regard to this subject. A great many of the Africans who have enlisted in the Army, have been trained as tradesmen. I had the pleasure of visiting military trade schools, in both East and West Africa, and a very good foundation has been made in army training for work after the war, in some technical employment. I regard this as one of the main

functions of the new Fund. It would be a pity if we took individual developments, however desirable, that certain hon. Members have in mind, and emphasised them above all the other competing claims for this money. We want to see the over-all picture for each Colony in which all these developments fall into their proper places. That we shall try to ensure.
11.45 a.m.
With regard to the other questions which hon. Members have raised, as to when these people will be trained, and the openings available for them, I am sure hon. Members who have spoken would be the first to explain to the Committee that the experience from which they were speaking, though recent and interesting, was a limited one and that there are large areas in the Colonies to which they were not referring and where conditions such as they mentioned, do not exist. The picture which they drew really comes down to the actions in one Colony of trade unions. I can only say at once, that it is the policy of His Majesty's Government that a full and fair opportunity should be given in all these trades to the inhabitants of the Colony. Wherever there is any difficulty, it arises not from the social legislation of the Government, but from trade union agreements with employers. Although I am grateful that the matter has been raised, hon. Members opposite who have taken an interest in it, will find an even better way of expressing their feelings because there happens to be one of the representatives of those trade unions in this country now, being received at the world trade union conference. He would, no doubt, be extremely impressed to hear the views of his colleagues on those Benches.
I can assure the Committee that I attach the greatest importance to this vocational training, and all Governors whom I have visited, are interested in it. I have no doubt that when the Bill has become an Act, and the money is available, one of the most prominent features in the programme will be a wide extension of the facilities which already exist.

Sir W. Wakefield: In view of the statement just made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman I wish to say on behalf of my hon. Friends and myself that we do not propose to go further with the suggested new Clause. Before asking leave to withdraw the Motion, I would


say that we, of course, realise that throughout the Colonial Empire very great advances are being and have been made and the widest opportunities are being given to native people. It would be wrong if any other impression went out to the world. At the same time, we are anxious that all those natives who have been receiving such first-class training are, in fact, given an opportunity in peace time to use training which they have had for war. Every opportunity should be given them to continue the use of the technical training they have had, with full scope for the development of those qualities which they have now got, but which they did not possess before the war. If this short Debate has done nothing further than that, it will have achieved its purpose. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

11.48 a.m.

Earl Winterton: I have not taken part in the previous Debates on the Bill although I have listened to all the discussions. I want to make an observation now of a very short character. I am aware that, on the Third Reading, one can discuss only what is in the Bill, but may I be allowed to say that while I think the whole House, irrespective of party, is grateful to the Colonial Secretary for what he has done in this regard, I hope it will not be thought in the Colonial Office, in the War Cabinet or anywhere else, that this is the end of the interest and assistance which may be given to the Colonial Empire. I regard the proposals of the Bill as a very good beginning of what I hope will be a longterm policy to do something to remove a stain from the escutcheon of British policy, which has for so long left the Colonial Empire in a state of stagnation and arrested development.

11.50 a.m.

Mr. Creech Jones: It is a commonplace of American criticism in respect of British Imperialism, as it is called, to demand of us the liberation of the Colonial peoples, and the liquidation of

Colonial status. It is significant that the purpose of this Bill is to achieve these very purposes. I doubt if any Imperial Power has ever before embarked upon a policy of deliberately disintegrating its Empire. That is the effect of this Bill in the long run. It will contribute to training the Colonial people for complete and responsible self-government and fitting them, socially and economically, to discharge their responsibility in the world. They will thus, in due time, make their own independent decisions, in regard to their future inside the British Commonwealth. I believe, of course, that we are helping to unify the Commonwealth by the Bill before us.
Nevertheless, it is important that we should realise that there can be no real political liberty unless the economic and social conditions of the Dependencies are built up. Accordingly, the Bill has set in the forefront this main purpose of building up the economic conditions of the Colonies in order that the people may as soon as possible be able to play an effective part in the larger life of mankind. I feel that we may not be generous enough in the period of time allowed for the long-term planning, as visualised in the Bill. The House will recollect that the West Indies Royal Commission did, when it made its recommendations, suggest a period of 20 years for development schemes. We have limited that period by the terms of this Bill, virtually to a 15-year outlook, in which our administrators and the Colonial Office can plan. But there are many big schemes which will have to be embarked on in the Colonies and for which a longer period than is prescribed in the Bill will be necessary.
There is a further point. It may be contended sometimes that we are undermining by these contributions the self-reliance and independence of the Colonies in their growth. I think it is true that we have to be extraordinarily careful, when making grants, to do nothing which will in any way prejudice the growth of self-responsibility, or weaken the urge to develop the local resources of the Colonies, necessary for the social services that the Colonies require. It must be obvious to us all that there is a desperate need at the moment throughout the Empire, for heavy expenditure of money. Even in the field of social services alone, the immediate needs are likely to cost


colossal sums. Those of us who have had the opportunity of looking at some of the educational estimates relating to primary education for all children of school age, and reasonable facilities for secondary education, are aware that the estimates of cost far outstrip the capacity of the countries concerned, to provide the necessary money for that educational expenditure. The same is true of public health development, and so on.
Therefore, I hope that in the administration of this Bill nothing will be done to prejudice the independence and the responsibility of the Colonial peoples. I wish them to be closely associated with all the plans and schemes of development. But also, alongside that, there should be the fullest development of the economic resources of the separate Colonies, in order that they may be able to sustain their social services and economic development, and carry on should some British Government, at any time in the far-off future, be obliged to withdraw any of the grants which the Government are now prepared to make. Equally serious consideration should be given to the question of how far measures can be taken for the retention in the Colonies of a great deal of the value of the wealth which they now create and which is now drawn from them. I would also like the further implementation of the pledge which was given at the time of the passing of the 1940 Act, that there shall be a steep increase of direct taxation in the Colonies. The building up of taxable capacity should go on, and the work of development accelerated, but that direct taxation, already started in many of the Colonies, should as a policy be more vigorously pursued.
My final point is that under the 1940 Act, it was provided that there should be recognition in the Colonies of trade unionism, and that there should be fair standards of remuneration. Many development schemes had been adopted, before the Colonies themselves had adopted suitable trade union legislation. I believe there are still a number of Colonies which have been enjoying the benefits of the 1940 Act, and will enjoy the benefits of this Bill when it becomes an Act, and where suitable legislation has not yet been enacted. I beg the, Secretary of State to do all in his power to press for the implementation of suitable

trade union legislation, in order that we may feel completely satisfied that all that can be done, is being done, so far as Colonial labour is concerned. There are many other observations I would have liked to make in regard to this Bill. It is epoch-making legislation. Many speeches have been made and many books written about it. It marks an enormous step forward in the development of British Colonial policy. I think we should congratulate the Secretary of State and the Government on providing more money, and making it possible still further to carry on this work of building up the social and economic life of the Colonies, while not neglecting the development of political institutions, and the movement towards complete political responsibility.

11.59 a.m.

Mr. W. J. Brown: It is obvious that the House will, unanimously, give a Third Reading to this Bill. I support the Bill, and I felicitate the Secretary of State on its very easy passage through the House. So far as it goes, it is a good Bill, but I think it is essential, before we give it a Third Reading, to try to see the Bill in something like proper perspective. I desire to say a word in support of the point of view advocated by my Noble Friend the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton). My mind goes back to the Third Reading of the Colonial Development Act, 1929, which was introduced by the then Lord Privy Seal. He described the Bill as a contribution to the solution of the unemployment problem in Britain. I remember very vividly that, under that particular Bill, one of the things we were going to do was to build a new bridge over the Zambesi. The contribution which that Bill made to the solution of the unemployment problem in Britain was negligible, and its contribution to the solution of the Colonial development problem was almost equally negligible. This Bill represents some advance. We now have a figure of £120,000,000 instead of the £5,000,000 of the original Colonial Development Act.
I do not think this House should give the Bill a Third Reading without addressing to the Secretary of State the admonition, that if he regards this as a final, or even a main, contribution to the solution of the Colonial development problem, then he is taking a wrong view of the problem. It is inevitable that at this stage we must


make moneys available from this country for the development of industry and enterprise in the Colonies, but I do not believe that that alone will bring us within even striking distance of the solution of the Colonial problem which properly rests upon our shoulders. I cannot develop that point at great length, within the rules of Order, but I took the opportunity of sending the Secretary of State some time ago a book entitled ''Soviet Light on the Colonial Problem," which I hope he has studied, marked, learned and inwardly digested, because it raises issues which do not even begin to be touched by this Bill. Therefore, I say this Bill cannot be a final, or even the main, solution to the Colonial problem. The point of the book I will not develop, because if I did, I should be outside the range of this Bill, but the main point is that if we do not solve the Colonial problem, we cannot justify retaining one quarter of the earth's surface as a preserve of the British Empire. We can only justify it on the ground that we do as well as, or better than, in those territories either the people there could do for themselves, or other Powers could do for them. That is the only real justification for the Empire.
If we are to solve that problem what we have to do is not merely to provide more money. So far as the Bill does that I give it my whole-hearted support. But if the Secretary of State regards this as a final or main contribution he is wrong. He has to alter the whole approach to the Colonial problem. Instead of conceiving of the Empire as something to be administered by the British Government through Governors working in conjunction with councils of local chiefs—which is roughly the Colonial set-up in the British Empire—he has to develop a policy such as that through which the Soviet has made such striking and tremendous changes in the less developed portions of what used to be the Russian Empire. I beg the Secretary of State again to read that book, study it and digest it, and to think in much the same fundamental terms, rather than in the mere making of large sums of money available. He has to set himself to raise the whole standard of life of the Colonial peoples throughout this Empire. He will not do that merely by confining his relations to the Governors and native chiefs. He must get in touch with the peoples of the Colonies, and look to them to formulate the demand for the higher

standard of life which is the only solution to the Colonial problem, and a very potent contribution to Britain's trade problem after the war. So while I felicitate the right hon. Gentleman, and give the Bill my blessing—for what it is worth—with that of the rest of the House, I beg him to re-assure the House, before we part with the Bill, that he does not regard this as the summit and crown of his distinguished career, but only as one very small step, a nine-inch step, no more, up the ladder which we hope he will continue to travel, with benefit to himself and to the Colonial Empire.

12.5 p.m.

Dr. Morgan: I am very sorry that attendance at the Manor House Hospital on a serious case prevented me from being present at the appropriate hour, to move the new Clause—[Reports to Parliament]—standing in my name, upon the Order Paper. Seeing that the opportunity of moving my Clause has, unfortunately, been lost, through no fault of my own, I want to ask the Colonial Secretary at least to give an assurance in the spirit of the Clause, having regard to the fact that a comparatively large sum of British taxpayers' money is being spent by his office on the advice of his bureaucratic officers, whether in the Colonial Office or in the federal scheme. I ask that information should, as frequently as possible—say twice yearly—be submitted to Parliament On the scope and nature of the schemes, especially with reference to public money which is given to help either private or public companies in the Colonies.
These remarks are apropos of what the Colonial Secretary himself said on the Second Reading. He said that he proposed to give help to companies run by Colonial insular Governments. He stopped there. Are the Colonial insular Governments going to run these companies for themselves? Are they to have local directors? Are the directors to be officials, or are the companies to be private companies, run by joint boards? I wish the Colonial Secretary would tell us in what way he proposes to ask these Colonial companies to do this. Under the West Indies Welfare and Development Fund he has imposed a federal bureaucracy which is advisory, it is true, at present, but they can settle the terms of the grants to individual Colonies. If


he is going to set up companies under insular Governments, is he going to bring in his federal advisers, and are they going to be advisers to the companies? This is important, because when I asked the question about a company which has sustained losses, the Colonial Secretary mentioned the loss on a big railway track in Bermuda. I would like information about this matter. Some companies do not lose, but gain. I would again impress upon the Colonial Secretary the case of the St. Kitts Sugar Company. I know he is tired of hearing about it, but it wants explaining. If we are to help development companies in future, is it to be on those terms? I think we should say that companies should not be allowed—

Colonel Stanley: On a point of Order. Shall I be allowed to deal with the case of this company when it is not in the Bill?

Mr. Speaker: I was wondering whether the hon. Member's remarks were in Order. He can give an illustration, but he may not go into the history of the company.

Dr. Morgan: No, Sir, I do not want to go into the history of the company—it is too long. But I was hoping that the Colonial Secretary would not use the British taxpayers' money, under this Bill, to help sugar manufacturing companies of that description. In this company an original capital of £3,250, unpaid, because it came out of the commission of the loan, has now developed into a capital value of £750,000.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speaker rose—

Dr. Morgan: If, Mr. Speaker, you say I am out of Order, I will leave it at that. I only want to prevent the Colonial Secretary from helping companies of that description without some check on the huge profits they might make. I want him to see that the wages of the labourers are not kept low owing to the stranglehold that the companies will have on the labourers on their estates. Welfare is not enough, and development is not enough. It is all very well for the officials to be operating under this scheme, but I ask the Colonial Secretary again to see that he uses this money, as far as he can, under democratic institutions. That may be

out of Order too, because the whole thing is mixed up. I am not against this money being spent, but I want to be sure that we are not going to regard this as a settlement of the problem, either from the Colonial Office point of view, or from the point of view of the insular Governments. I hope that not only health schemes, business schemes, and development schemes will be advanced, but that money will be used on cultural schemes, which will be of use in relation to welfare.

12.12 p.m.

Mr. Edgar Granville: There have been Debates on Colonial welfare when the House has not been overcrowded, but it was obvious, when this Bill was given its Second Reading, that there was a growing interest among Members in Colonial affairs in general. Now we have the Third Reading Debate, including a speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), who has come down here on a Friday morning in order to place upon my right hon. and gallant Friend the Colonial Secretary the mantle of the tradition of the great Colonial Secretaries of this country. I think everybody congratulates the right hon. and gallant Gentleman on the Bill. I agree with the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) that this must be regarded as an opportunity. It must be be only a first instalment. Resting upon the shoulders of the Colonial Secretary, the Dominions Secretary and the Secretary of State for India at the present time is a very great and serious responsibility for the future. When the Prime Minister said, in his Mansion House speech, that he did not become His Majesty's first Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire, the concern of a great number of us who take some interest in these Empire problems was: What are the constructive proposals of the Government; what will they do to tune in to the climate and opinion in the Empire and make the Commonwealth and Empire a great democratic responsibility?
It is not enough to make these after-lunch and after-dinner speeches: a great opportunity resides with the Ministers today to plan boldly and well. I believe that after this war, a great number of men and women who are serving in the Forces will want to make their future in


the British Dominions and the British Colonies. I, for one, would have preferred to see something in this Bill which would have given the Commonwealth and the Empire machinery for democratic co-operation to plan these future schemes for development as a whole. That has not been possible, but I accept the assurances which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has given this morning, that it is his intention to have the closest co-operation with the Dominion Governments, in order to develop agriculture, trade and communications throughout the Colonial system.
I hope that when the Colonial Secretary gets going on the practical implications of this Bill, he will use not only the Press, but the B.B.C. to make it known all over the Empire, right through the Forces, and in this country generally, exactly what the Government have started to do and the opportunities which this Fund provides. Anyone who has discussed this with the troops during the war has found that there is a strange uncertainty about the whole question of Colonial expansion, and I am sure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, in the contacts he has made with our gallant Allies from overseas, has been astounded by their conception and the limited responsibilities of this country. Therefore, I hope that in this Bill provision will be made for adequate publicity. I hope he will take the opportunity of making contact with his right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for Air to see that they are enabled to convey to all those serving in the Forces factual information as to the opportunities that will arise after demobilisation. I, for my part, wish the right hon. and gallant Gentleman well, and I hope that he will seize his opportunities and that he will go down in our annals as one of the great Colonial Secretaries.

12.17 p.m.

Colonel Stanley: I am, of course, very grateful for the way in which this Bill has been accepted by the House. I know how sincerely Members feel about our responsibilities to the Colonial Empire and had no doubt that it would be universally accepted. Indeed, the list has become complete, because all parties in the House have now expressed their approval and if I may I should like to congratulate the

hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) upon having ceased to be a Member and become a party. I believe it was an ancestor of mine in the reign of Queen Victoria who once said that an independent Member of Parliament is one who cannot be depended upon. I am glad the hon. Member no longer comes within that category.
To answer first one or two of the special points that were raised: The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones)—who, unfortunately, was prevented from being here for the Second Reading of the Bill, because he was ably carrying out in the United States of America some very necessary educational work in connection with the Colonies—raised the question of direct taxation. Hon. Members will be aware that in almost all the Colonies direct taxation has been introduced during the war. It has not always been on the same scale as in this country, although it is on a scale which in those happy days before the war we should certainly have thought severe. Conditions are not always the same. The incidence of indirect taxation, especially for Europeans in the colonies, is very much higher than it is here, and I think the hon. Member can be satisfied that there is to-day at any rate a fair level of taxation, and the certainty that out of any profits made in a Colony the Colonial Government has an adequate share. He also referred to the trade union provisions of the Act of 1940. It is true that both my predecessors and I did give a period of grace. One could not expect, all over the Colonial Empire, to prescribe trade union laws to be passed immediately; and to have enforced the full rigidity of the law would merely have meant that the inhabitants of the Colonies might have lost some very valuable assistance. That period of grace is now over, and I satisfy myself that these provisions are carried out before grants are made.
To come to detailed points, there is the question, raised by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan), about the supply of information. I shall not attempt to follow him in the other parts of his speech, because I confess that I have not got the technical skill which enabled him to keep within Order, but the point he raised that we ought to provide the House and the public with the fullest possible information is an important one. It is right that when we vote sums of this magnitude whatever


is possible should be done to enable the House to judge both how the money is being spent and what results are being achieved. Under the old Bill for an annual return has to be made of the schemes which are approved. For the progress of the schemes and to some extent the results, it will, I think, be necessary to look to the annual reports when their publication is resumed after the war. It is there, I think, that we can judge best of the progress in each Colony and how these schemes are working. When the time comes to resume their publication, I will certainly consider what suggestions I should make to the various Governments as to the form in which the information on the progress and development of schemes within the area shall be given.

Dr. Morgan: That refers only to annual reports. I was asking for more frequent information, and Mr. Speaker said, I think, that I was within the rules of Order.

Colonel Stanley: What I am proposing will, I think, afford the amplest information consonant with the proper execution of this work. With schemes of this magnitude one cannot pull them up by the roots every month to see how they have grown. People must have a little time in which to carry on with a scheme. The hon. Member's proposed new Clause, which he was not able to move, would have provided that twice a year every single scheme passed under the old Bill and this one should be reviewed not only as to its progress but as to the effect it was having. Already in these years hundreds of schemes have been passed, and under this Bill there will be thousands. It really cannot be suggested that every six months thousands and thousands of individual schemes, some of them only amounting to £100, should be submitted to Parliament. That would be an intolerable strain on those who have to do the real job, which is to get the schemes going, but I think the suggestion I made, when the hon. Member interrupted, that in addition to the annual return of schemes approved we should include in all the annual reports of the Colonies a special chapter, perhaps, or at any rate information in a prescribed form, as to the progress of the schemes, would prove to be valuable.
The general sense of the Debate, showed, I think, a generous acceptance of

this Measure but a feeling that none of us can say that, by what we are doing to-day, we are finally closing the problem of Colonial development. The Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) and the hon. Member for Rugby—and close as they are in physical proximity they are far apart in political philosophy—are agreed upon this: that in the future we may again have to look at this Measure. I would remind hon. Members that the Act of 1930 did not prove to be final, and the Act of 1940 did not prove to be final, and it may well be that the Act of 1945 will not prove to be final, and that subsequent Ministers and subsequent Parliaments will have to consider in the light of the circumstances of their day whether the provisions of this Act are a full discharge of their responsibilities. Certainly in dealings with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one step at a time is enough for me, and I regard this step as a valuable one. It gives those facilities which we wish to give at the moment, and does not preclude subsequent Governments from reconsidering the matter when the time comes.
I have only one word to say in conclusion. No one can prophesy that the coming into force of the new provisions of this Measure will produce an immediate and dramatic change in the Colonial Empire, that we can clear up in a few months, or even a few years, the immense number of things that have to be done; but I do believe that this extension of the great step which this House took in the dark days of 1940 places in our hands an adequate weapon for our task, a task which I do not for one moment consider, to use the phrase of the hon. Member for Shipley, as a task of disintegrating the British Empire. I believe that the effect of these provisions and of this new outlook will be not to disintegrate but to consolidate the 60,000,000 people in the Colonial Empire.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

INDIA (ESTATE DUTY) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

12.27 p.m.

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
May I turn the attention of the House from the broad and fascinating vision of Colonial development to a small Measure whose only purpose is to remedy an oversight in the drafting of the India Act, 1935, more particularly in reference to the repartition of taxation as between the central Government and the Provinces. Last year, in introducing his Budget, Sir Jeremy Raisman, the Financial Member of the Government of India, in dealing with the various measures which he was taking, and taking with no little success, in order to cope with the grave danger of inflation, announced his intention of introducing this year an Estate Duty. That would have a further effect besides the negative effect of dealing with inflation, because it would provide the Provinces with funds for reconstruction.
I ought to explain that duties of this character, even though levied at the centre, are, under the financial schemes of the Indian federal structure, actually allocated to the Provinces, and of course the work of reconstruction in India will mainly fall upon the Provincial Governments. It was subsequently suggested that such an Estate Duty might not be within the competence of the Government of India or of Provincial Governments, because the list of taxes as between the centre and the Provinces in the Act of 1935 referred only to Succession Duties. It was suggested that a Succession Duty levied on that part of an estate which passed to a particular beneficiary would not cover a duty on the estate as a whole. The Government of India submitted the matter to the Supreme Federal Court for an opinion and that Court, by a majority of its judges, decided that the doubt cast upon the power of the Government of India and of the Provincial Governments was well founded, and that Estate Duty could not be introduced or passed on agricultural estates in the Provinces or at the centre upon estates other than agricultural.
In these circumstances, the only recourse is to Parliament, to remedy what was, obviously, an unintentional oversight. If hon. Members will look at the Bill, they will see that, in Clause 1 (1), it proposes to insert a reference to Estate Duty in the Federal Legislative List. Similarly, it proposes to insert a corresponding reference in the Provincial Legislative List, and, in Subsection (2) it proposes to introduce a reference to

Estate Duty in Section 137 of the Act, which provides for the distribution to the Provinces of certain taxes. Finally, Subsection (3) seeks to include a definition of what is meant by Estate Duty. Clause 2, of course, simply deals with the Title, and with instructions to printers.
The only other thing I need say, is that this Measure is purely permissive. It gets rid of a bar to the freedom of the Central and Provincial Governments in dealing with their financial problems. It does not prescribe, still less prescribe in detail, whether such duties should be imposed, or what shape they should take. It is intended simply to get rid of an unsuspected and unforeseen obstacle to necessary legislation in India. I may add that the Bill is of some urgency, because the Finance Member will be introducing his Budget next month, and will naturally want to know whether he is free to introduce the Measure which is in contemplation. If there are any other points which hon. Members wish to raise, perhaps, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and the leave of the House, I could reply to them.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: I think the right hon. Gentleman has explained the Bill. It is merely to tidy up what was left a little uncertain in the main Bill, and, so far as I am concerned, I hope it will be given a Second Reading and speedily become law.

12.33 p.m.

Mr. Silverman: May I ask a question about this Bill? It would be interesting to know whether there have already been enacted or levied, either centrally or in any of the Provinces, Estate Duties the legal validity of which is doubted or rejected by the Federal Supreme Court of India. If that is so, I would ask whether the effect of this Bill, if we pass it, will be in any way retrospective, so as to legalise any duties already imposed which were illegal when they were imposed.

Mr. Amery: No such measures have been introduced. This was the first time that any such measure was contemplated, and, in view of the doubts expressed, advantage was taken of the facility to appeal to the Supreme Federal Court, for an authoritative opinion on the subject.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—[Mr. Beechman.]

Committee upon Tuesday next.

NORTHERN IRELAND (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

12.34 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Miss Wilkinson): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The chief purpose of this Bill is to give full trustee status to Northern Ireland Government securities and securities guaranteed by that Government and make further provision for the eligibility of such securities as investments for funds of savings banks. These are objects which can only be effected by legislation in this Parliament, and I do not think that anyone will question their desirability. The Bill contains a number of other provisions on matters upon which the Parliament of Northern Ireland is not competent to legislate. All these are of an uncontroversial nature, and are, indeed, concerned with the clearing away of technical difficulties, and I need hardly say, of course, that the Bill has been prepared in consultation and in full agreement with the Northern Ireland authorities.
Because the Bill is of a miscellaneous nature, it is not possible to give a general description of it, and I think it would be best, therefore, if I referred very briefly to each of its Clauses. With regard to Clause 1, criminal law of Northern Ireland is generally a matter for the Parliament of Northern Ireland. That Parliament is debarred, by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, from legislating with regard to excepted or reserved matters. It follows, therefore, that any amendment of the criminal law by the Parliament of Northern Ireland, cannot apply to offences in connection with excepted or reserved matters. The Parliament of Northern Ireland desires to make certain amendments of that criminal law, in matters of procedure by bringing it up-to-date and also by bringing it more closely into line with the criminal law of England. Hon. Members will see, therefore, that it would be very inconvenient, if the old and out-of-date provisions had to be kept in force,

merely for the purpose of dealing with offences in regard to excepted or reserved matters, which, of course, cover a very small field of criminal law.
If the House would like an example, the Parliament of Northern Ireland desires to legislate on the lines of our Indictments Act and thus modernise their law. This Act, which was passed in this Parliament in 1915, simplifies the forms of indictment, and that, of course, applies to all indictable offences in England, including coinage offences. It would be very inconvenient if the corresponding Northern Ireland Act did not apply to such offences. The Clause, therefore, enables the Parliament of Northern Ireland, to make amendments to the criminal law of Northern Ireland applicable to all criminal offences, but the Clause is subject to the provision that the punishment for any offences relating to any excepted or reserved matters, shall not be affected, except in order to bring it into conformity with the punishment provided for such offences in England and by English law. So much for Clause 1.
Clause 2 deals with functions, with respect to matters within the legislative competence of Northern Ireland which are, from time to time, transferred by Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, from one Department of the Government of Northern Ireland to another. For example, functions relating to health and local government have recently been transferred from the Ministry of Home Affairs, to the newly constituted Ministry of Health and Local Government for Northern Ireland. There exist functions in connection with reserved matters, which have been placed, by Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, upon the Ministry of Home Affairs, as being at that time the appropriate Department, in view of its health and local government functions. For example, under the Therapeutic Substances Act, 1935, therapeutic substances may not be imported into Northern Ireland, unless the Ministry of Home Affairs is satisfied that they conform to the required standard. Under the existing law, such functions cannot be transferred to the Ministry of Health and Local Government except by an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The object of the Clause is to enable, in such circumstances, the Governor, by Order in


Council—made, of course, with the consent of the Secretary of State—to transfer, from one Department to another of the Northern Ireland Government, the functions placed upon the first Department by an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Butcher: On a point of Order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the right hon. Lady is reading this speech?

Miss Wilkinson: I am extremely sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I think the House will realise that this is a highly technical Bill, and that it is dealing with matters of which it is quite impossible to speak at large.

Mr. Messer: As that point of Order has been raised, and the question has been raised before, I think it is due to the House that a Ruling should be given.

Mr. Speaker: The Rule is that use may be made of notes, but that speeches may not be read. I can see nothing from here, because there is a Box in the way, but the right hon. Lady is reading something, and I expect they are notes.

Mr. Butcher: I am very grateful for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I think that, if the position of our seats were reversed, your Ruling would be different.

Mr. Silverman: Has it not always been understood that a Minister, dealing with highly technical matters, should be allowed to make use of notes?

Mr. Alexander Walkden: Will my hon. Friend opposite accept my assurance that the right hon. Lady was looking at us, more than at her notes?

Mr. Speaker: Statements sometimes have to be made by Ministers on difficult and technical matters, and, in those circumstances, it is usual that the use of notes is allowed.

Miss Wilkinson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will now deal with Clause 3, which is, perhaps, not so technical, and on which I can expand a little for the benefit of the hon. Member. It makes provision, on suitable occasions, for the use of an embossed seal instead of the Great Seal of Northern Ireland. On such

occasions, it will be possible for documents to be sealed by affixing to the document a single-sided impression of the Great Seal. The authority given by this Clause will be particularly useful where a considerable number of documents have to be passed under the Great Seal and have to be issued at the same time. For example, in the case of election Writs, the elaborate procedure provided for the attachment of a double-sided wax impression of the Great Seal is hardly justified. I would like to point out the exact amount of labour involved. I think there are some 50 constituencies for the Northern Ireland Parliament.

Mr. Silverman: Will the right hon. Lady please address Mr. Speaker?

Miss Wilkinson: It is necessary for each of these Writs to have affixed an impression of the Great Seal, on which the Clerk of the Crown would have to spend a large amount of public time. I believe that, on occasions, he has even had to bring his wife into the matter, and spend many hours making sets of wax impressions of the Great Seal, to produce for each document, a double-sided impression of the Seal. I am sure hon. Members will realise that that is a considerable waste of public time, to say nothing of the time of the good-natured lady concerned. Therefore, instead of going to that amount of trouble, we are proposing that these impressions shall be made so as to give a single-sided impression of the Great Seal. I can assure hon. Members that there has been a provision in English law for the use of a substitute of that kind for the Great Seal of the Realm since 1877. So much for Clause 3.
Now we come to Clauses 4 to 7. These are to give effect to what I have described as the main purpose of the Bill. Clauses 4, 5 and 6 will result in trustee status being given in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to securities issued by the Government of Northern Ireland and to the securities which are guaranteed by that Government. Clause 7 will remove certain restrictions which at present apply to the investment of funds of savings banks in these securities. Clause 8, as the hon. Member who intervened, will be pleased to know, provides for the winding-up of the Lunacy Fund, which was established for the defraying of the expenses of the Lunacy Office in Ireland and it is made up of percentages charged


on lunatics' estates and certain other fees. In England the expenses in connection with lunacy administration are borne by the Exchequer, and this Clause provides for the same practice to be followed in Northern Ireland.
Clause 9 deals with a very technical matter, and I must be forgiven if I read exactly what I have in my notes and I am sure when hon. Members hear what I am going to say, I shall be forgiven. The effect of paragraph (a) of Sub-section (1) is to enable the owner of a charge, when exercising the power of sale, conferred on him by the local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act, 1891, to apply to the court in a summary manner, for possession of the land or any part thereof. Paragraph (b) of that sub-section enacts what has always been assumed to be the law in Northern Ireland and what has in practice been acted on namely, that on a sale of land by the registered owner of a charge, the charge and all burdens inferior to the charge are discharged. Clause 10 makes the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland the legal depository of duplicates of conveyances and other instruments relating to Crown lands in Northern Ireland. It has, in fact, been the depository for some time, since the burning of documents in Dublin in 1922. Finally, Clause 11 corrects a drafting omission in the Northern Ireland section of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939. References in this Act to the Lord Chancellor and to the High Court should, in Northern Ireland, be references to the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, and to the High Court of Northern Ireland.

12.50 p.m.

Professor Savory: I should like to thank the right hon. Lady for her very lucid exposition of this extremely complicated Bill. I have every sympathy with what she says with regard to the question of seals, because I am informed that, at present, in order to use the Great Seal for the 52 Writs of the Members of Parliament for Northern Ireland, it requires for each Seal half a pound of wax. I may perhaps relate my own experience in this connection. I was returned for the constituency which I now represent on 2nd November, 1940, and as I was its a hurry to take my seat, I asked to be entrusted with the Writ but I

was very much afraid, as it was such a huge great seal, that it might get broken before I could get it to the House of Lords and deposit it in the hands of the Clerk of the Crown. However, I discovered, that so far from the Seal being wax, it was made of guttapercha and it had served on all sorts of occasions for many documents.
To come to more serious matters. Clauses 2 and 3 refer to the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. That Act is the Act which established our Constitution, and it is proposed to alter that Act and to extend it in various ways as shown in these two important Clauses 1 and 2. It must be remembered that the Government of Ireland Act set up the only sample that we have of a federal system inside the United Kingdom. You have a Parliament sitting in Northern Ireland composed of two Chambers, the House of Commons and the Senate, yet at the same time sending representatives here to the Imperial Parliament. Obviously, the Government of Ireland Act tried to lay down as far as possible what are the prerogatives of the Government of Northern Ireland and what functions are "reserved" or "excepted" for the Parliament of the United Kingdom. You have in Clause 2 a very interesting example which refers to criminal legislation. Criminal legislation is not a reserved service. It is within the competence of the two Houses of Parliament for Northern Ireland, but criminal legislation may refer to certain matters which are reserved services, and therefore any Bill introduced into the House of Commons of Northern Ireland could not refer to these matters, and the object of Clause 2 is to widen the powers in that respect of the Government of Northern Ireland.
As this question is brought up here today it may be pointed out that there are certain other matters on which this bears. There is a very important Subsection in Section 4 of the Government of Ireland Act to which I would like to call attention. The Parliament of Northern Ireland cannot deal with relations with other parts of His Majesty's Dominions. What is the result of that? It is impossible for us, within our own powers, to interfere, in any way, with the penetration into the country of certain undesirable elements. All that we can do is, when they have entered the country, to instruct our police to take such measures as they


can for the defence of the country. This is exceedingly unsatisfactory because we cannot stop anyone crossing the border, nor can we prevent goods from being brought across the border. The result is that we had, as hon. Members may have read in the papers only the other day, a very glaring example of a huge dump of arms which was discovered in the Falls Road district of Belfast. Would it not have been far more satisfactory if the officials of the Government of Northern Ireland had been allowed to prevent these arms from being brought in there instead of waiting until they had been dumped into the country?

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. Gentleman is going far too wide in discussing disputes between Southern and Northern Ireland. The hon. Member is distinctly out of Order in this matter.

Professor Savory: With respect, I would suggest that I do not want to be misunderstood. That was not really my intention. I am confining myself to the Bill, and I did not refer to Southern Ireland at all. I desire only to try to get some further slight amendment of this Bill, so as to give us the powers which are really essential for our own defence.

Mr. Messer: If people came across the border then they must have come from Southern Ireland.

Professor Savory: I am only dealing with the people actually in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Speaker: That is the whole point. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the border, and there is no other way to cross the border except into Southern Ireland. He must, as I have asked him, stick to the purposes of the Bill.

Professor Savory: With the utmost respect I would point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that when the Defence Regulations expire, as they will expire after the war, then the various measures which have been taken, for instance that relating to residence permits, will disappear, and the Government of Northern Ireland will have no power to deal with the matter. I really do feel that as the Government of Ireland Act is now being called in question in this Bill, I am entitled to point out—and I am not referring to Southern Ireland at all—that there are some slight

difficulties as between the Imperial Government and the Government of Northern Ireland as to how far the powers of the one or the other extend. I have brought up a number of questions in this House, put them to the Home Secretary, and he has replied to me "This is a matter for the Government of Northern Ireland." I have said "No," and asked him if he is not aware of Section 5 in the Government of Ireland Act with reference to reserved services and that he himself is the only person who could deal with these matters.
The Members of the Northern Ireland Parliament are very concerned about this, because there is scarcely any matter that can be brought before the House of Commons and the Senate of Northern Ireland which, in wartime, does not come under the Defence Regulations, and therefore is a reserved service. The result is that there is a growing feeling among the Members of frustration, and they really feel that there is very little for them to do at Stormont. Practically the only important subject which comes within their jurisdiction is the subject of education and even here there are certain restrictions. Therefore, I do feel that, as we seldom get an opportunity of discussing these matters, and as the Government of Northern Ireland Act is being called in question in this Bill, I ought to be allowed this opportunity of pointing out the difficulties that have arisen. I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not in any way in favour of Dominion Home Rule, of making Northern Ireland into a Dominion—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is, as I have already told him, going far too wide. He is discussing all sorts of things on a Bill which merely deals, as it clearly states, with miscellaneous provisions, and on which one cannot discuss Home Rule relations and questions of that sort. I must ask him to bring himself to Order.

Professor Savory: I am bound to bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I would like to point out in conclusion that in spite of anything that I have said, my one object is to improve as far as is possible the relations existing between the Government of Northern Ireland and that of the United Kingdom, and to bring them closer together, because we ourselves are proud to form part of the United Kingdom.

12.48 p.m.

Mr. Butcher: As I raised a point of Order, I find it very difficult not to intervene. The right hon. Lady in charge of the Bill referred to me and therefore I feel that it would be both discourteous and ungenerous of me if I did not congratulate her on having brought this Bill before the House. It is, to her, the crown of a political career. Here she is bringing in a Bill dealing with substitutes for the Great Seal, giving full trustee status to securities, making alterations in the winding up of Lunacy Funds and making further provisions for the Public Record Office. I should not wish this great day in her political life to pass without adding my word of appreciation from these benches.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—[Mr. Beechman.]

Committee upon Tuesday next.

NORTHERN IRELAND (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee, under Standing Order No. 69.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

Resolved:
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make miscellaneous amendments in the law applicable to Northern. Ireland and, as respects securities issued or guaranteed by the Government of Northern Ireland, to amend certain enactments relating to trustees and savings banks, it is expedient to authorise—

(a) the payment into the Exchequer of all fees and percentages under the Lunacy Regulations (Ireland) Act, 1871; and
(b) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(i) to the registrar in lunacy in Northern Ireland and to the officers and clerks employed in the lunacy office in Northern Ireland, of such salaries and travelling and other allowances as the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland may, with the concurrence of the Treasury, determine;
(ii) to the medical visitors, the legal visitors and the solicitor for minors and persons of unsound mind respectively referred to in the said Act of 1871, of such remuneration and travelling and other allowances upon such conditions as may from time to time be specified by general order made, with the concurrence of the Treasury, by the Lord Chief Justice of

Northern Ireland, and of costs and expenses incurred by any of them in such proceedings instituted pursuant to the provisions of the said Act of 1871 and on such scale as may be so specified;
(iii) of such other expenses incident to the lunacy office in Northern Ireland as the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland may, with the concurrence of the Treasury, direct to be defrayed out of such moneys."—(King's recommendation signified.)—[Miss Wilkinson.]

Resolution to be reported upon Tuesday next.

POLICE (HIS MAJESTY'S INSPECTORS OF CONSTABULARY) [MONEY]

Resolution reported:
That for the purposes of an Act of the present Session to remove the restriction upon the number of His Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary that may be appointed under Section fifteen of the County and Borough Police Act, 1856, of Section sixty-five of the Police (Scotland) Act, 1857; to provide for the appointment of Chief Inspectors for England and Wales and for Scotland, respectively, and to amend the law as to the reports upon matters affecting the police which are to be laid annually before Parliament, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any additional expenditure incurred by reason of the provisions of the said Act of the present Session removing the said restrictions and providing for the appointment of such Chief Inspectors.

Resolution agreed to.

POLICE (HIS MAJESTY'S INSPECTORS OF CONSTABULARY) BILL

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

COMPENSATION OF DISPLACED OFFICERS (WAR SERVICE) [MONEY]

Resolution reported:
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the compensation of persons who have been engaged in war service and are not re-employed or suffer loss of employment, reduction of emoluments or deterioration in their conditions of employment by reason of changes affecting the functions of local or public authorities or public utility undertakers or changes in the management of schools, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase ascribable to the provisions of the said Act in any grant payable by any Minister of the Crown.

Resolution agreed to.

COMPENSATION OF DISPLACED OFFICERS (WAR SERVICE) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 2.—(Compensation of officers of a local authority on war service who are affected by change of functions.)

1.5 p.m.

Commander Prior: I beg to move, in page 2, line 9, leave out "his former office," and insert:
the office to which he would have been entitled had he not proceeded on war service.
The effect of the Amendment will be to rewrite
he was not re-employed in his former office
so as to read,
he was not re-employed in the office to which he would have been entitled had he not proceeded on war service.
The purposes of the Bill are very clearly explained in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, which says:
The main object of this Bill is to put employees of local authorities who are on war service … in the same position … as employees of the local authority who remained in local government employment.
It is the custom for employees of local authorities, especially those in very junior ranks, to receive increases of pay and promotion in respect of the period of time in which they have been employed, and I submit that Clause 2 does not place those employees who have been on war service in the same position as those who have continued in employment with local authorities. They come back on exactly the same terms and with exactly the same remuneration as when they left years before, and that is causing them a very grave hardship indeed. Recently I had a visit from one of my shipmates who has been discharged from the Service on account of health. He has been sent back to his former employment on exactly the same terms as obtained when he left nearly five years ago. That young officer correctly stated, in my view, that he had a very serious grievance, and it is that grievance which my Amendment seeks to remove. It may well be that the Minister will say that this point is covered by Clause 8, Sub-section (2), which says:
References in this Act to the reemployment of any person with reduced

emoluments shall be construed as referring to re-employment with emoluments less than those which he would have received in respect of employment … immediately before the date on which he ceased to be engaged in war Service if he had continued to be so employed until that date.
If such be the case my Amendment is redundant and should be withdrawn, but if that is not the case I consider that a very grave hardship indeed is being inflicted on employees who have proceeded on war service. The Minister may point out to me that he cannot go beyond the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act of 1944. Section 1 (a) very clearly lays down how this position is dealt with in the case of those in civil employment, and I submit that the local authorities' employees are in a completely different category. They are skilled in local authority work, they have pension and other rights, and if they are to give up all that to look for employment in other spheres of life they will be suffering a very grave hardship indeed. The hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden), during the Second Reading Debate, pointed out how the railway companies were dealing with this matter in that those who were in their employment were given temporary appointments. I believe that the same state of affairs takes place in the Civil Service, but here employees of local authorities, returning after many years of arduous work in the service of their country, are put in exactly the same position in regard to compensation as when they left—a very grave injustice indeed.

Mr. Alexander Walkden: I would like to say a few words in support of the Amendment. I have put no Amendment on the Order Paper because I was under the impression—I am so innocent—from their sympathetic and friendly attitude, when the Bill was read a Second time, that the officers of the Department would themselves find nice words which would meet our point. Unfortunately, they have not done so, and I have just received a letter from the Minister explaining that he could not quite see his way to do it. I ask him to be kind enough to have another look at this matter. I think it could be done. In all these services—and there is a great variety of them—there is a regular promotion system. It is subject, of course, to alteration if there is any misconduct or fault on the part of the person concerned, but normally officers go from


stage to stage in the customary manner. If they have been away for some years serving their country and then come back and find that their customary progress has been annihilated and they have to stand where they were when they left and wait many years before they get another chance, it is a source of bitterness and real hardship to the good men concerned.
I am a little uncertain whether the words of the Amendment are quite adequate, but I feel that if the Minister looks at this question again with his usual sympathy—and I am sure there is sympathy in the Department for this point—he may find even better words than those tabled by my hon. and gallant Friend. Perhaps the inclusion of the words "by customary practice" after the word "which" in the second line of the Amendment would help the position. We do not want any man who comes back from the war to say, "If I had not gone away to fight I would have been general manager by now." That would b preposterous. A general manager is not appointed by seniority or customary practice. This only refers to the ordinary men in this fixed service who get their pay increases and promotion according to customary practice, and really that customary practice ought to be protected. They ought not to come back and find that their position as employees has been damnified in any way whatever. Therefore, I beg of the Minister to undertake to have another look at this and see what he can do for us on the Report stage.

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: I feel, as I think the Committee will feel, a good deal of sympathy with the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. and gallant Friend, but I can see that the Minister might feel that there is some difficulty in putting a returning officer into the post which he would have held or which he might have reasonably expected to hold had he not proceeded on war service. I can see that from the standpoint of the authorities the break in experience might be an obstacle to reinstatement on those lines. The real point of the Amendment is that the returning officer ought to be sure that his remuneration when he returns to the service will not be less than it would have been if he had continued throughout in the service. I would invite my right hon. and learned

Friend, if he does not feel himself able to accept the Amendment, to give us an assurance that he will look into the matter again from that standpoint, and at a later stage of this Bill make some provision that would secure that the employee who has proceeded upon active service and who, when he returns, finds that he is not entitled to, or will not receive, the remuneration which he might otherwise reasonably expect to have been his if he had remained continuously in the service of the authority, shall not at any rate be placed in any unreasonable position by reason of his active service.

1.15 p.m.

Mr. Burden: With the spirit of this Amendment, every Member of the Committee would agree, but I would submit that in its present form—and I am speaking with some experience of local government—it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to apply. Who is to determine the office to which a man would have been entitled had he not proceeded on war service? Is it the man? Is it the council? Who is it? Many of these young people who have gone away are obviously on salary scales. We all agree that while a man is away his increments should follow year by year, but who could say that a person on a maximum scale would necessarily have achieved a position higher or in another department? I think the terms are so wide that it would really be impossible to apply it, but if the Minister would look at it in that spirit of sympathy with which he has approached the problem of trying to see that no person on war service is in any way in a worse position than those who remained at home, then probably he will see whether anything can be done to meet the point.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Willink): I am very glad that we should have bad an opportunity of discussing this Amendment, and I am grateful to the hon. Members who have spoken on it. However, I am afraid I cannot accept it, for reasons which have really already been indicated. I have looked at this question since the Second Reading Debate and, of course, one has to remember right through that whatever we do, however sympathetic we are, war with its years of interruption causes difficulties which are inevitable. What we are trying to do in this Bill is, so far as practicable, to put local


government officers on war service in the same position as officers who have remained at home, and it will not have escaped the notice of the Committee that we have dealt in the Bill and in the Schedule with men on an incremental scale. After most careful consideration, however, I feel it would be impossible to put upon anybody, local authorities or anybody else, a liability to pay compensation for a loss so problematical as to its existence and, apart from that, so difficult to value as to amount, as would be necessitated by some provision for loss of an "office to which he would have been entitled." After all, the intention of my hon. and gallant Friend's amendment is not really limited to income which the officer would have had, it is office to which he would have been entitled, and promotion really does not and should not always go by seniority. Consequently, though I should like to do everything possible, and I believe we are in fact doing everything possible in this matter, I cannot accept this Amendment.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. G. Hutchinson) suggested something that would really go outside the Bill altogether, if I understood him aright. He was dealing with a question of remuneration, and not a question of compensation at all. He wished to provide for men obtaining the same remuneration that they would have obtained, but this is a Bill for compensation of displaced officers and that is the limit of its scope. I should welcome the opportunity of looking into it again if I had not looked into it thoroughly already, and I am afraid I cannot accept the Amendment.

Mr. Petherick: I am grateful, and I think the Committee is, to my hon. and gallant Friend the member for Aston (Commander Prior) for having raised this matter. There are only two possible classes of officers who may be affected. I see very well that it would be extremely difficult in the case of a man who went into the Army in, say, 1939 to expect when he came back not only to be reinstated in his previous job—which, shall we say, was that of an assistant surveyor—but to be appointed surveyor because he might, by the death of a previous surveyor, have felt he was entitled to that job, It would be extremely difficult to lay upon all the authorities concerned the onus of accepting such obligations as that.
On that point, I am afraid I am not in agreement with my hon. and gallant Friend, but there is another point which has been raised, and on that I am not quite satisfied with the reply of my right hon. and learned Friend. That is the case, to give an example, of a man who in 1939 joins the Army and then comes back and who, in the course of his ordinary service, would be entitled to annual increments. I understand from my right hon. and learned Friend that he would not be entitled to those increments but would go back on his old salary. He has explained the reason for it, and has said this cannot be covered by the Bill. I wonder if that is absolutely the case. It seems to me that a man in that position would suffer consequential loss—one might almost say, direct consequential loss, and that instead of having a salary of £500, as he would if he had stayed in the service of the local authority in the ordinary way, he would now, on coining back after 5 years' absence, only be entitled to £400 a year. That seems to me to indicate that such a man would be suffering consequential loss, due to the fact that he went into the Army. Am I quite wrong in thinking that this cannot be covered by the Bill? I should have thought that the long Title of the Bill would, in fact, cover that, and I would, therefore, direct my right hon. and learned Friend's attention to that particular point in view of the further suggestion that I have made to him, and would ask him if he could not possibly see his way at a later stage to introduce an Amendment which would cover that particular class of person which I have mentioned.

Mr. Willink: I think the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick), though interesting, is quite clearly outside the scope of this Bill. The point he is dealing with is one which relates to the general question of reinstatement in employment. The scope of this Bill is limited to making provision for due compensation for officers who because they are on war service, are not within the usual provisions for compensation when pecuniary loss has arisen by reason of a change in the functions of the local authority in whose service they were. Now my hon. Friend's observations were applicable to any officer of any local authority to which he returned after war service, whether or not there has been


any change in its functions, and it would be right outside the scope of this Bill to provide new terms with regard to reinstatement of officers returning from war service and to ensure that they should immediately obtain from the local authority the increment which they would have had but for their war service. That, I am afraid, is a conclusive objection to dealing with that matter in this Bill—it would be right outside its scope.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): The point which is now being discussed seems to be so outside the scope that I am afraid I ought to have stopped it quite a long while ago.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: On a point of Order, Mr. Williams. I apologise to the Committee if I failed to make my remarks clear a moment ago, but is it not the case that under this Sub-section the compensation to which the officer would be entitled is necessarily based upon the remuneration in receipt of which he was at the time when he proceeded on war service, or upon the remuneration which he might reasonably be anticipating that he would be receiving when his war service ended?

The Deputy-Chairman: I think that as far as the Amendment is concerned, the Amendment is in Order, and I have always considered it was, but as far as a certain argument is concerned which has been raised by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson), which the Minister himself said he thought was entirely beyond the scope of the Bill, as regards that certain point of remuneration, that seems to me to be getting beyond the scope of the Bill. I allowed it to be put because I thought there was a doubt, but I do not think we ought to follow it, especially as the Minister himself says he cannot get it into the Bill.

Mr. Hutchinson: On a further point of Order. I do not want to press it too far, but is it not the case that in order to determine the compensation to which the officer would be entitled under this Clause it is necessary first to have regard to his remuneration, because the compensation must necessarily, under this Clause, depend upon the loss of the remuneration which the officer will sustain by reason of his loss of office or emoluments?

Mr. Willink: I do not know whether this will make the matter clearer; it is quite

correct, as my hon. and learned Friend says, that in certain cases it is necessary, when considering compensation, to consider what remuneration the man would have obtained. What I was suggesting, and continue to suggest, is outside the scope of the Bill, is to put forward additions to the Bill to provide for remuneration and terms of remuneration when no question of compensation and no question of change of functions has arisen.

The Deputy-Chairman: I think probably that is the real point at issue.

Mr. Hutchinson: I agree with what my right hon. and learned Friend has just said, and I agree with him that one can only have regard to the officer's remuneration, or anticipated remuneration, in the limited sense in which that remuneration will form a basis of the compensation to which he will be entitled under this Bill. I would like to invite my right hon. and learned Friend to consider this matter again and see whether, in that limited sense, it is not possible to provide for the compensation to be based on the higher rate of remuneration which the officer might have anticipated if he had remained in the service of the local authority.

Commander Prior: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Willink: I beg to move, in page 2, line 22, leave out "on," and insert "in."
This is a mere drafting Amendment, required in a number of places in the Bill. By inadvertence the word "on" appeared in the place of "in," and in a number of places we desire to have the word "in" in order to have consistency throughout the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 4.—(Power to pay compensation in certain additional cases.)

Amendment made: In page 4, line 30, leave out "on" and insert "in."—[Mr. Willink.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

1.30 p.m.

CLAUSE 5.—(Power by Order in Council to provide for the compensation of officers of public authorities and public utility undertakers on war service.)

Mr. Willink: I beg to move, in page 5, line 18, at end, add:
(2) Every Order in Council made under this section shall be laid as soon as may be before Parliament, and if an Address is presented to His Majesty by either House of Parliament, within the period of forty days beginning with the day on which any such Order is laid before it, praying that the Order be annulled, His Majesty in Council may annul the Order and it shall thereupon cease to have effect, but without prejudice to the validity of anything done thereunder in the meantime or to the making of a new Order.
In reckoning the said period of forty days, no account shall be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued, or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than four days.
(3) Section one of the Rules Publication Act, 1893, shall not apply to any Order in Council made under this section.
(4) Any Order in Council made under this section may be varied or revoked by a subsequent Order made in like manner.
This Clause provides for Orders in Council in cases where provision for compensation is in respect of the servants of public authorities or public utility undertakers. The Bill, as drawn, makes no provision for consideration by Parliament of such Orders in Council and I think it would be appropriate that there should be provision for laying such Orders and for an opportunity for Praying against them. The additional Sub-sections, as drafted, are, I think, in regular and. ordinary form, and are in line with the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), which follows on the Order Paper. I think, however, that the Amendment I am moving is more technically accurate. It adds what is obviously desirable, power to revoke or amend an Order.

Amendment agreed to.

The Deputy Chairman: Does the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. G. Hutchinson) desire to move the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) in page 5, line 18?

Mr. Hutchinson: The Amendment which the Minister has moved, and which

has been accepted, has entirely met the point of our Amendment, Mr. Williams, and I do not, therefore, desire to move it and discuss it.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 6 and 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 8.—(Interpretation.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Commander Prior: Would my right hon. and learned Friend mind explaining to the Committee Sub-section (2) of this Clause, with regard to compensation?

Mr. Willink: Sub-section (2) of this Clause, which is, of course, the Interpretation Clause, is one which throws light on, and defines what is meant by, the re-employment of any person with reduced emoluments. Its object is to define what is meant by reduction. It states that reduction is not to be taken as an actual arithmetical reduction, but is to be the amount by which the new emoluments are less than those which the officer would have received in respect of employment in his former office. It will be noted that the reference is to his former office. No question arises as to some other office to which he may have been entitled. What it refers to is the position of the officer on an incremental scale, and the reduction will be measured not in relation to what he was receiving in 1939, or when he went to the war, but to what he would have been receiving on that incremental scale at the material date.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Remaining Clauses ordered to stand part of the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Provisions as to certain officers of local education authorities.)

(1) Any officer of the local authority on war service—

(a) to whom sub-section (4) of Section six of the Education Act, 1944, would have applied if he had not been engaged in war service immediately before the date of the commencement of Part II of that Act; and
(b) who having been taken into the employment of his former employer as defined by Section seven of the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act, 1944, continues to be employed by that employer after the period prescribed by Section four of that


Act but on terms and conditions less favourable to him than those on which he would have been employed had the said subsection (4) applied to him; and
(c) who by reason of the terms and conditions of his employment being less favourable to him as aforesaid suffers any loss or injury, not being a direct pecuniary loss in respect of which he is entitled to compensation under any other provision of this Act:
shall be entitled to recover from his former employer such sum as shall be sufficient to compensate him for that loss or injury.
(2) Paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 and 11 of the Schedule to this Act shall apply to claims for compensation under this section, subject to the modifications that the references to the local authority and the Minister shall be construed as references to the said former employer and the Minister of Education, respectively.—[Mr. Burden.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Burden: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
I hope the Minister will not think it ungracious of me, in view of what he is doing in this Bill, if I press this Clause on his attention, but it deals with one aspect of the problem which we think has not yet been covered. May I recall that the Education Act, Section 6, Sub-section (4) provides that transferred officers shall be employed on the same terms and conditions as they were immediately before the transfer. It can easily be appreciated, I think, that among the transferred officers there may be varying sick pay conditions, and other similar conditions, but under the Section I have just mentioned the authority to whom these officers have been transferred cannot vary the conditions. As I read this Bill as it is at present, an officer in the Forces, coming back, has no similar protection so far as his conditions of service are concerned. I admit, of course, that he has protection for 12 months under the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act, but after that period, I understand, he has no protection of any kind, and the authority to whom he has been transferred may vary his conditions of service in any way they may think fit.
It may be argued that it is not usual to provide for contingencies of that kind, but, as the Committee is always sympathetic to precedents, may I recall that in the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933, Section 73, Sub-section (3), there is adequate protection for all service conditions for the persons transferred under -that Act. My hon. Friend the Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) who,

no doubt, had a part to play while that Act was being passed, will recall with me what a mixed lot of people from all sorts of undertakings were brought within the scope of that Act. As I see it, the long Title of the Bill gives scope for what I am asking, because it covers deterioration in the conditions of employment, etc., of these officers and I suggest that I am in Order in asking the Minister, within the terms of the Title of the Bill, to give consideration to the point I am making. I am sure that from the way in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has approached this problem, and the way in which this Bill is drafted, he has no desire, if it can possibly be avoided, that any officer serving in the Forces should be in a worse position than one who, fortunately or unfortunately, has not been called to the Forces. I agree that there must always be an element of risk in this matter, but so far as we can do justice I believe it is the desire of the Minister that we should do justice, and I ask him to give sympathetic consideration to this Clause, even if the words on the Order Paper do not quite meet the position I have outlined.

Mr. Willink: This is a technical matter and I hope I shall be able to explain it with sufficient lucidity. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Mr. Burden), who understands so much about these matters, for having raised this question, and I think I had better review the position and see what really comes out of an examination of it. In the Education Act there is a requirement, under Section 6, Sub-section (4), that officers employed by a county district council immediately before 1st April, 1945, in an educational capacity, are to be transferred to the county council on the same terms and conditions. It is quite true that those who were in the service of the county district, and who are on war service on 1st April, will not be covered by the Section. They will, however, come within the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act and, surprising as it sounds, the definition in that Act has this result: that the county council is their former employer for the purposes of the Act. So the county council will have to take these officers into their service on terms and conditions not less favourable than those previously enjoyed or, if that is not


reasonable and practicable, in the most favourable occupation and on the most favourable terms which are reasonable and practicable.
In the Bill as it stands, in so far as any of these officers suffer a direct pecuniary loss, they will be entitled to compensation in respect of that loss, and my real trouble about this new Clause is that it is quite expressly directed to losses which are not direct pecuniary losses at all. I think I am right in saying that these provisions for compensation of local government officers, on a change in functions, have always been in terms of direct pecuniary loss. We should be going outside the shape of the main provisions of the 1933 Act and its Fourth Schedule, and we should be entering a field of very great obscurity. I am not sure what compensation a local authority would feel it was being asked to make in respect, for instance, of a diminution of the period of annual leave, or a lower scale of sick pay or something of that kind. One can get a formula for compensation for loss of office or reduction of emoluments, but, with respect to my hon. Friend, I think the method of calculating compensation is left, in his Clause, entirely in the air and inevitably so, because it is really impossible to define. If the county council does not do what it should, in this curious capacity in which it is described as the former employer, the officer has legal rights against the council. But this particular form of compensation which the Clause suggests is a form of compensation which would be special for the case of an officer of a county district who had been on war service, and one to which the officer who had remained at home all the time would not be entitled, and therefore it would go outside the main purpose and scope of the Bill whose object is to put officers on war service as far as practicable in the same position as those who are not.
1.45 P.m.
That is really the objection to it, because for the law to be in a logical condition after to-day one would really have not only to accept this. Clause but to amend other Acts, possibly the Education Act and the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act, in order to provide, not for the reinstatement at present provided for but for the employment on identical

terms and conditions of both classes of officers, those who have gone on war service and those who have not. If that is a true analysis of what is really asked for, I think it can be seen that both in principle and in the shaping of the Bill one would be going outside the scope of what is intended in the Bill and, though I am sympathetic to the suggestion, I am afraid I cannot accept the Clause.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: This is certainly a technical and very involved matter and I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for the explanation which he has given, but he has not entirely convinced me that the reasons which have prompted him to reject the Clause are really well-founded. He has said, quite rightly, that the purpose of the Bill is to place those officers on war service in the same position as those who have not gone on war service. The Clause was intended for exactly that purpose. The difficulty that the officer on war service finds himself in is that, by reason of the fact that he is on war service, he does not enjoy the special advantage enjoyed by those still in the service of a county district authority at the time of the transfer to the county authority, with the special obligation on the latter to employ the transferred officer on the same terms as those on which he was employed by the county district authority. That is an advantage which the officer who remains in the service of the authority enjoys under the Education Act, and it is an advantage which the officer on war service does not enjoy. Because he is not actually transferred at the time of the transfer, the only right that he has to be employed on the same conditions as those on which he was employed before he proceeded on war service arises under the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act. That is only temporary, and the point of the Clause is to meet the position which arises when that temporary obligation is exhausted. It is at that stage that the officer on war service at the time when the transfer takes place may be at a disadvantage. In those circumstances I would like the Minister to look at it again and see if it is not possible to hold out some hope that he can meet this rather exceptional situation. I am sure he would not be setting any undesirable precedent if he attempted to deal with an exceptional position by an exceptional method.

Mr. Burden: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the way in which he has given attention to the matter, but I would again plead with him to see whether he can meet us in some way or other. There may be two men employed by the same authority. One is transferred and the other is away on war service. The transferred man is entitled to sick pay for six months. That cannot be altered under the terms of the Education Act, but the new county authority's sick pay arrangements may be for three months only. When the man who has been on war service comes back, he goes to the county authority and is protected for 12 months. He retains his original right. After that the county authority would put him on three months' sick pay. That is a typical instance, and it may apply to all concerned in other conditions of service. There is a precedent in the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933. I will not press the right hon. and learned Gentleman further to-day but I would ask him to look at it again before Report.

Mr. Willink: My hon. Friends have put their case very persuasively but I hope I have satisfied the Committee of what I believe myself, that this is really not a question of setting an undesirable precedent or anything of that kind but of implanting into the Bill something that amounts to an amendment of the Education Act and the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act. It is really extending in principle the obligation for the re-employment of officers of Part III authorities. I think many difficulties would arise. For those men who have been on war service there is no right to exactly the same employment on their return. The obligation on the county council will not be to take them into something exactly comparable with their former employment, and this is the general law. The obligation is to take them into their service on terms and conditions not less favourable than those on which they were previously employed or, if this is not reasonable and practicable, in the most favourable occupation and on the most favourable terms that are reasonable and practicable. The hon. Member has spoken of something which might occur after 12 months. But a change might occur within 12 months and yet the county council has complied with its statutory obligation. I see the greatest difficulty in going

beyond what is the general scope of compensation provisions, both generally and in this Bill, in going beyond direct pecuniary loss, which is what has always been covered so far, in providing for the special and really rather exceptional circumstances which my hon. Friends envisage and for a type of loss which, not being directly pecuniary loss, is very difficult to assess. Having considered it carefully I am afraid that I must stand firm and say that I see no hope of getting this additional provision in the Bill.

Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.

SCHEDULE

Amendments made: In page II, line 14, leave out from "in," to "two," in line 15, and insert
the case of an officer who immediately before the material date held.

In line 15, leave out "the officer."

In page 12, line 48, leave out "means."

In line 52, leave out the second "on," and insert "in."

In line 52, at end, insert
except that for the purposes of paragraph 5 of this Schedule it means the date on which he became so engaged.

In page 13, line 9, leave out the second "on," and insert "in."

In line 13, leave out the second "on," and insert "in."—[Mr. Willink.]

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered.

Motion made, and Question "That the Bill be now read time."—[Mr. Willink.]

2.0 p.m.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: Having pressed my right hon. and learned Friend on the Committee stage of the Bill, perhaps unduly, I desire to say to him at this stage that my hon. Friend the Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Mr. Burden) and myself, and those in whose interests this Bill has been promoted, are grateful to him not only for the way in which he has met us, but for the prompt manner in which this Bill has been introduced and carried through.

2.1 p.m.

Mr. Burden: I also would like to thank the Minister for this Bill, not only on our own behalf, but on behalf of those whose


interests it is designed to meet who are now on war service, I want to thank him for the kindly and sympathetic way in which he has dealt with the points we have put to him and for the care and attention which have been shown in the preparation of the Bill. So far as I know, the point which has just been raised in Committee is the only one of substance which has emerged in the detailed consideration of the Measure.

2.2 p.m.

Mr. Butcher: I join with my two hon. Friends in expressing appreciation to the Minister for the helpful way he has assisted us in the proceedings on this Bill. I would also like to ask him whether he would take advantage of the Third Reading, to clear up a point that I raised with him on Second Reading. He has been good enough to do it by letter, which I find entirely satisfactory, but I shall be grateful if he will confirm that the position now is that any youngster who went into the Army, Navy or Air Force after the opening of hostilities is entitled to compensation under this Bill.

2.3 p.m.

Mr. A. Walkden: I wish to add my appreciation to that which has been expressed, to thank the Minister for this Bill, and to congratulate him on the happy and expeditious way he has got it through. I hope that we may be just as happy and expeditious next week on the much larger Measure that will then be introduced.

2.4 p.m.

Mr. Messer: I would not like to strike a discordant note, but I think it is necessary to sound a note of warning. There have been so many bouquets thrown at the Minister that they might have the effect of making him feel that he can steer everything through, in the placid way which he has enjoyed on this Bill. I am sure that that will not be the case. This was a needed Bill. It was necessary in the interests of justice. We are glad that the Bill is going through. If it had not been passed there would have been a grave omission. Many tasks will be lightened by its passage, because at this juncture no graver disservice could be done than by creating grievances and dissatisfactions among local government staffs. We shall shortly be calling upon

those staffs for strenuous service. Nothing is more important than that they should be efficient and satisfied, and to the extent that this Bill makes a contribution in that direction, we are grateful. It is necessary, however, to warn the Minister that the life that lies ahead for him will not be composed of such easy paths, unless, of course, he completely adopts the philosophy which I hold, that is, Socialism.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): On Third Reading, we cannot discuss philosophy, but only what is in the Bill.

Mr. Messer: That is true, and I would say that to the extent that this Bill is a Measure of social justice, it is a contribution to the philosophy of Socialism.

2.6 p.m.

Mr. Willink: I am grateful to my hon. Friends for what they have said and for having helped us to get this necessary legislation through the House with so little delay. Only yesterday we were discussing the immense importance of our local government service in the years immediately ahead. This Bill is a small contribution to fair terms and justice for local government officers who have been on war service of whatever kind. I am glad my hon. Friends the Members for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) and for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher) asked me to make clear the position on a point which was raised on Second Reading. The question was whether any difficulty would be caused for a local government officer who had run off on war service, without getting the approval, or even against the advice and instructions, of his local authority. The point is quite clear, and can be stated in a way entirely satisfactory to the hon. Members who raised it and to those who are affected.
So far as this Bill and these officers are concerned, the position is covered by paragraph (7) (2) of the Schedule, which provides that any period during which an officer has been engaged in war service within the meaning of the 1939 Act shall be reckoned as a period of service in his office. That is to say, the criterion is whether or not he was on war service, and not the circumstances in which he embarked on that service. Any officer of a local authority who ceased to serve his authority in order to undertake service


during the period of the present emergency would be on war service as so defined, and he can reckon that service, whether he joined the Forces voluntarily or compulsorily, with or without the permission of his authority. I am speaking on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland as well as for myself when I express my gratification and gratitude to those who have helped us to get this Bill through.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

FOOD SUPPLIES (POULTRY AND RABBITS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Mathers.]

2.9 p.m.

Mr. Stourton: I am glad of this opportunity to try to persuade my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food to revoke the Poultry (Maximum Prices) Order. There is a good deal of feeling on this subject on both sides of the House, and, in addition, the present situation is resented throughout the country for adequate and cogent reasons which I will lay before the House. Whereas I can think of at least half-adozen sound reasons for revoking the Order, I search my wits and fail to find one in favour of its retention.
The first reason for the withdrawal of the Order is that I believe it to be unenforceable, and it thus provides considerable opportunities for black marketeers. The growth of black market influence under this Order has been very notable and pronounced. My next reason, which follows from the first, is that it brings the law into contempt. The third is that maldistribution has deprived legitimate traders of the opportunity of securing the limited supplies that are available. The public, too, has been denied the chance of buying their fair share of table poultry and rabbits through normal channels. Again, it is fair to state that table poultry is not raised in reasonable quantities under this Order become, at prices fixed by the Ministry, they do not show a fair return and profit to the producer. Lastly, and this is as weighty a reason as any, all trade interests

—that is, producers, wholesalers and retailers—are as one in supporting my case for the revocation of the Order.
On several occasions this subject has been raised in the House. I would remind my right hon. and gallant Friend of the occasion when the hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick) drew his attention to the fact that grave black market offences were being committed in the sale and distribution of turkeys for the Christmas trade. I refer not to foreign turkeys, but to English birds. In reply, my right hon. and gallant Friend said that the Ministry were instituting prosecutions wherever they could get the necessary evidence. As a result of that reply I put a Question to the Minister on 17th January, and he informed me that there had been 22 prosecutions of those guilty of disposing of turkeys above the controlled price. This figure is, I submit, wholly negligible in view of the fact that practically the whole output of English turkeys in East Anglia was sold in the black market, as my right hon. and gallant Friend is well aware. The efforts of my right hon. and gallant Friend's Department, through his enforcing officers, were no doubt, highly commendable in their way, but about as effective as trying to stop a leak in a battleship with a pocket handkerchief. In reply to a further question, my right hon. and gallant Friend said that the number of black market offences had been greatly exaggerated. I submit that the facts all point to the contrary, and I am able to produce overwhelming evidence in the opposite direction.
In my view, the simple truth is that the Poultry (Maximum Prices) Order cannot be made to work, as my right hon. and gallant Friend once admitted, unless there are enforcement officers available for practically every farm in the country. At the recent annual conference of the National Federation of Meat Traders Associations, held in London on 16th January, representing no fewer than 45,000 butchers in Great Britain, a motion was adopted urging the Minister to revoke the Order on the ground that it failed to control not less than 95 per cent. of table poultry. I should like also to point out that the said motion has the approval of and was endorsed by the Poultry Association of Great Britain and the National Association of Wholesale and Retail Poultry Dealers. I am also able to cite


the case of one retailer who got into touch with me and pointed out that he had no less than 35 shops where, before the Order was made, he used to dispose of English table poultry and rabbits, but since the Order he had not sold a single head of one or the other.
Where are the limited supplies of poultry going? My contention is that they are supplied mostly to hotels and restaurants by subterranean channels, and the black market. In the meantime, the unfortunate and long-suffering British public have to go without. In addition to the reasons which I have already given, the trade is opposed to the Order because the prices fixed by the Ministry are unremunerative to the producer. I shall be very grateful if the Minister in his reply would state whether the basic reason for the making of the Order was not originally to discourage the production of table poultry and rabbits. I understand that there was a great scarcity of feeding stuffs at the time when the Order was made, but the position is now easier.
I hope it is not too optimistic for me to assume that my right hon. and gallant Friend may consider revoking this Order. Let us consider what the immediate results would be. The first would be to kill the black market, stone dead so far as the poultry industry is concerned. That would be a very useful step. Secondly, producers would be encouraged to increase supplies at an economic level. I am prepared to agree that if prices are to be remunerative they must move in an upward direction to some extent. Lastly, the revocation of the Order would give the public an opportunity to obtain a fair share of poultry and rabbits on a larger scale than hitherto, through increased production. To sum up briefly the case for the withdrawal of the Order, let me say that both on moral and economic grounds, I consider it to be overwhelming. I therefore appeal to my right hon. and gallant Friend to take the necessary steps forthwith.

2.19 p.m.

Mr. Petherick: I should like to support my hon. Friend in the case that he has put forward. It was a very strong case for the annulment of the Order. I do not wish to follow him in all the arguments that he has advanced and thus weary the House,

but we have heard it stated by the Minister, speaking of course with perfectly good faith, that the black market is not as extensive as some people seem to think. I think there is very little doubt, although the matter is difficult to prove, that there has been a very large black market, particularly over Christmastime, in turkeys and poultry.
In the critical, but I trust benign, remarks I am going to address to the Minister I hope it will not be thought that there is any lack of appreciation of the Food Ministry's work or its conduct by the Minister or his predecessor. The Department has, on the whole, done very admirable work from the moment the war broke out. In relation to basic foodstuffs such as meat, bread, bacon, tea, sugar and other commodities the whole of the Ministry's administration leaves very little to be desired. Considering the immense difficulties of shipping and distribution the Ministry have managed to ensure a fair distribution of food to the whole population, and the result has been that the people of this country have been very well fed during the war. Some exaggerated claims are occasionally put forward to the effect that we have never been so well fed before, but I take them, I must say, with a grain of unrationed salt. None the less, we have been very fairly and properly looked after.
It is when we come to the less important foods and materials that the Ministry has been less successful. I do not think that is due to lack of good intention or to lack of good faith, but to the fact that when dealing with things in short supply, in some cases almost luxuries and at any rate non-necessities, we run into a great deal of difficulty. The moment the Government step in they are very apt to drive foodstuffs such as eggs and poultry off the market. I remember that after the Government intervened in regard to eggs, the ordinary housewife saw very few eggs, and felt herself very lucky when she got an egg allocation. We have had experience of Government control in the case of the Food Ministry not to mention many other Departments, and I hope—perhaps that is the wrong phrase, and I should say "I hope not"—the people of this country have enjoyed it. I am certain they have not. The queue mind will very rapidly disappear after the war, and people will ask for a little more liberty.
In addition to the question of poultry—and I hope my right hon. and gallant Friend will accede to the request that was made in that respect—I want to raise another matter connected with the administration of the Ministry of Food. We have seen a large number of advertisements and heard talks on the B.B.C. in connection with food matters directed to the ordinary housewife. I called the attention of the Minister the other day to an advertisement in "The Times" which cost His Majesty's Government £78. A more futile advertisement and a more flagrant waste of the nation's money I find it difficult to imagine. A great many similar advertisements, I feel, are an absolute waste of money. It is true that when food is in relatively short supply it is important to try to persuade the housewife to understand the importance of calories and proteins in order that she can make the best use of the food available. None the less, I think my right hon. and gallant Friend goes rather too far in endeavouring to make such information available.
What is really needed is a number of booklets such as there are in the schools. They are good little pamphlets which teach how to cook and in some cases teach the relative values of foods. I do not believe that all this weight of propaganda by the B.B.C. and in the newspapers is worth a great deal. I know we shall be told that housewives immensely appreciate it, but would it not be better to put this information up in pamphlet form and not waste such an awful lot of the taxpayers' money in advertisements and talks on the B.B.C.? We heard a lot of "Fuel Flashes"—I do not think there is much in them at all—now we have a large number of "Food Flashes" coming across on the wireless. I ask my right hon. and gallant Friend to reconsider the whole of our policy in this connection and to ask himself whether it is really worth while continuing these extremely expensive and not really effective forms of propaganda.

2.27 p.m.

Sir Percy Harris: I should like to hold up the hands of the Minister of Food, although I do not think he really wants very much assistance. There is no Ministry more popular in the country or more appreciated, and I only wish the same could be said of other Ministries. However, it was a useful

idea of the hon. Member for South Salford (Mr. Stourton) to raise the question of poultry, especially on Friday afternoon, when the Minister can have the opportunity of explaining the exact position to the country. I am one of those who pay their tribute to the whole rationing system. The reason the country is so content and so patient under short commons is that there is a general feeling of share-and-share-alike and that the well-to-do are no better off than the person of moderate means. We all have to submit to great inconvenience with queuing, ration books and the difficulty of deciding each week how many of those small bits of paper should go to the various things we want. We put up with those things because we recognise that during the last five years there has been a brave attempt on the part of the Ministry to dispense evenhanded justice.
It is just as well that the housewife should understand the reasons. It is clear that where there is not enough of a commodity to go round, it is important to organise a rationing system. The only alternative is to have a maximum price. The hon. Member who raised this Debate put up an effective case about the operation of the maximum price system. What is the alternative? It is to allow an open market in which the men or women with the longest purses can—with the approval of the State, mark you—always get what they want on the unrationed market.

Mr. Stourton: That is exactly what is happening now. If the right hon. Baronet had listened to what I said, he would have heard that the trade organisations say that not less than 95 per cent. of poultry goes through the black market.

Sir P. Harris: I quite recognise the difficulty, and I am going to deal with it. My hon. Friend proposes that the Minister of Food should throw up the sponge, give up the struggle, because of the dishonesty not only of sellers but of buyers, and should say to the public that for the sake of a few privileged people they will have to put up with short commons because the person in the large house and with the long purse can go into the market and get extra food. That would be disastrous, that would have a bad effect, that would cause discontent—

Mr. Stourton: That is what is happening now.

Sir P. Harris: The duty that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has to perform is to hold the balance between all sections of the community. I am all for him trying to improve his organisation, but I would not ask him to abandon the struggle. On the contrary, he ought to do the right thing by the whole community and, as I say, we ought to support him in his struggle.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick) had something to say against the propaganda section of the Ministry. I am one of those who think it is a most helpful thing. One of the criticisms of visitors to this country from time immemorial has been about its bad cooking. It has been suggested that in normal times we waste enough to feed the whole of the French people, with their economy and knowledge of the culinary art. The Department has educated people not only on food values, which is important, but on how to make palatable, and make the best use of, the commodities that are available.

Captain Cobb: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether that also applies to the Kitchen Committee of the House of Commons?

Sir P. Harris: Perhaps if the Committee would only listen in at 8 a.m. better use would be made of the foods available in the kitchen of the House of Commons. I am all for that excellent work which is being done by the Ministry. Their exhibitions, their instructional classes, their teaching of cookery, are not to be discouraged. My hon. Friend is no doubt fortunate in having a good cook or in being a good cook himself.

Mr. Petherick: I must interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I was expressing myself, not against these cookery classes, but against the newspaper advertisements and the rather silly talks on the B.B.C.

Sir P. Harris: I do not think that the talks on the B.B.C. are silly. They are very entertaining. When I get up early enough, I listen to them myself. There are humble folk, anxious to learn, who do listen in to these talks. They are one of the most useful things the Ministry have done and I hope they will go on with them. I even go so far as to hope that this work continues after the war, not necessarily as the work of a separate

Department. The education of the British people in cookery will do more good far the British nation than all the doctors and chemists' shops in the country put together. To go back to the poultry issue, I hope my right hon. and gallant Friend will hesitate to listen to the advice which has been given to him to abandon the Maximum Prices Order in relation to commodities too small in quantity for rationing.

2.34 p.m.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: When the hon. Member for South Salford (Mr. Stourton) asked me whether I would join him this afternoon in this discussion on the distribution of poultry I thought, and believed, that he intended to offer the House not only criticism of the way poultry has been distributed, or maldistributed, so far as the public are concerned; I thought he intended to support control, or the canalisation of distribution, so that there should be a greater equity in this matter of poultry and rabbits for those who are not getting a share, and who have had difficulty in getting a share, of these "tasty bits," which help to augment the rations. I was inclined to the view that he would suggest some system whereby the public could benefit. His only suggestion is that we should first get rid of price control. Of all the crazy ideas that have ever been submitted to the House, that idea of the hon. Member for South Salford has certainly reached the limit. It indicates that the logic behind his argument is—I am quoting East Anglia as he did—that because racketeers have brought the law into contempt, we must get rid of the law and make an open market. I do not know that the House will be impressed by such an argument, but that is what he means. His next suggestion is that there should be a step-up of foodstuffs to make an open market possible for the producers of table birds. I believe that the Minister of Food would say that he has been trying to do that for a long time, but that the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food jointly find difficulty in supplying the necessary food with which to feed the birds which would make that open market.
The major concern is: Why has this scheme of control failed? It has failed because so far as the consumer is concerned scarcity has determined that there


are not sufficient birds to go round. If the Minister of Food would tell the House there is a deeper cause of maldistribution. I believe it is the Minister of Agriculture who is "the ghost in the cupboard." I believe he is the bogy. I believe the Minister's predecessor, Lord Woolton, had a scheme to canalise table birds, poultry and rabbits, in the same way as eggs were canalised. I disagree with the hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick), when he says that for two years we got no eggs at all. While the system was in its infancy, it was difficult to canalise the supply of eggs, but in the main, every family in the land did get, after the organisation got into proper working order, their adequate supply, or their rationed supply, of eggs, through their retailer. It may be that they had to wait a while. The fact was that there was no machinery by which eggs could be collected. Ultimately, the Ministry got the eggs collected and distributed them through the retailers, and everybody got their ration. The hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth, who lives in a mainly agricultural area, might say that there was a big black market. Of course there was in the countryside, but the town dwellers would not have got an egg at all had it not been for the setting up of this organisation.
For about two years some of us tried to get the Minister of Food's predecessor to adopt this canalisation system in regard to poultry. It must not be forgotten that canalisation of poultry does take place for two months out of the 12, in regard to North of Ireland turkeys and poultry, and it means that the Minister himself handles the commodity, purchases on Ministry of Food account and consequently the birds reach the consumer. But when we have price control and no canalisation in the other to months of the year, there is a black market. In fact, the Ministry itself is incapable of enforcing its own Order. I agree with the hon. Member for South Salford in that. It is because the price control Order is insufficient.
A secondary reason is that there is an enormous loop-hole which can be seen at every market. If you were to go to Diss market to-day—that is in the area which the hon. Member was quoting—the trick could be seen. It is easy to observe; the Ministry's inspectors know what hap-

pens. It has been going on for four years. Those who carry it out are difficult to catch, but it is a very simple trick indeed. All that happens is that the farmer comes to the market with live birds. Along come persons who are sup, posed to be stock breeders, and when the auctions take place there is a sort of password or keyword—"Signing." When that term is used it means that these birds are for sale subject to the person who purchases signing a statement that it is intended, in buying those stock birds, that the stockbreeder will take them home and utilise them for stock purposes. Of those who buy 99 per cent. have no such intention, and the birds reach the West End of London, they reach the hotels and restaurants throughout the country, and they do so by that trick. It is a trick that is known in every market in this country and it has been going on. I, and other Members, have pointed it out. There is no attempt whatever made to provide a solution.
The hon. Member for South Salford says that we should get rid of price control, because of these racketeers, who have brought the whole business into contempt. I submit that a solution of this problem is long overdue. I believe that we should bang together the heads of the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Food until they get down to this problem. They nearly reached a solution two years ago, just before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman assumed his present office. There was a disposition on the part of his predecessor to be vigorous and challenging, and to stand up to the Minister of Agriculture. But the organisation that have fastened themselves on to or within the Ministry of Agriculture have resisted canalisation. I do not wish to name them. The Minister of Food knows them and I think the other Minister knows them too. There is a kind of resistance movement, surrounding, and working within, and with, the Ministry of Agriculture.
To say that canalisation is impossible is mere stuff and nonsense. If we can canalise these millions of eggs, which are brought from the countryside into the packing stations, and distributed through the wholesale market into the hands of the retailers, and eventually to the consumer, the Ministry of Food can canalise the chickens which are fed in this country. So far as the distribution of turkeys was concerned at Christmas, in regard to


the Northern Ireland turkeys which were bought by the Minister, there was very little, if any, racketeering. There was a black market in connection with the turkeys that were fed at home. I am convinced that when the Minister tried to explain the situation to the House, and to his food conferences, just before Christmas, he knew, and his officials knew, that a black market was an inevitable sequel to that Order and scheme which he promoted, so far as home-produced birds were concerned.
I do not really want to censure the Minister of Food, but I want to say that he has been badly advised, and that many of his advisers have set out to deceive him, and have succeeded in doing so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I believe that. They have known that there was another kind of advice that they could have given him, but for reasons best known to themselves, they would not venture on the drastic course which certainly was advised by the organisation to which the hon. Member referred just now. They made a suggestion, in the presence of the hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth some months ago. It was a most elaborate scheme, but it would have been simple in its application. It would have meant much to the consumer, but the Minister of Food, while favourable, found that the real block to the acceptance of this scheme was The Minister of Agriculture.
The Minister can do something in response to the appeals which have been made, but I hope that he will not accept the suggestions of the hon. Member for South Salford or the hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) takes the view which others on this side of the House take, that scarcity is the cause of the trouble, and that the scarcity will go on for at least two years after the war. The Minister of Food has a duty to get down to this problem now. It may be said that it is rather late in the war to do it, but, recognising that this augmenting of the rations is dependent upon the supplies we have been discussing, there can be no doubt that the general public will welcome some kind of organisation such as has been recommended, and that the black market can be eliminated in the main by that kind of organisation. I do not believe that it will mean an enormous

number of inspectors. Will the Minister reconsider the recommendations that have been made by one or two associations, taking into account all the circumstances which are known to him as a result of his experience when, in December and January last, he successfully prohibited everything that caused the black market? Will he prohibit it all the year round, or get the Minister of Agriculture to co-operate with him in a scheme for dealing with the supply of poultry?

2.50 p.m.

The Minister of Food: I am much obliged to my hon. Friends for raising this matter, because I think it is one which needs putting in its right perspective. With regard to these poultry supplies, there are three main sources—our home-produced birds, the birds we get from Southern Ireland, and those we get from Northern Ireland. This price control order applies to all three. It is completely effective in regard to imported birds, which come through our own channels of distribution. In regard to those from Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, it is completely effective. In regard to turkeys, that runs up to somewhere near three-quarters of the whole supply to this country. It is a much smaller figure in regard to poultry. If I took off the price control for birds from one source I should have to take it off for the lot.
Let us see why this price control was ever put on. These poultry did not become scarce because of the Order; the Order was put on because poultry were becoming scarce. People often seem to change the thing round, and take cause for effect. It was put on, as far back as 1940, because the prices of poultry were running up very high, to 2s. 6d. or 3s. a pound. The Order brought them down—of course there are different types—to about 1s. 11d. a pound for poultry. I have taken the best advice that I could as to what would be the price to which poultry would be likely to go were I to take off this Order. The advice I have been given is that it would be likely to run up to about 5s. a pound. I do not think we should allow that. So long as poultry and other meat products are as short as they are, I think it will be necessary to maintain this Maximum Prices Order—whether the price is quite right, or needs adjustment, is a matter that we look at every year.
But I would take this opportunity of warning the House that the whole world meat supply situation is a very difficult one at this time. We are for this year in an extremely difficult shipping situation. It is true that immense numbers of ships have been built, but our Allies in the United States and ourselves are carrying on very extensive military operations on four different fronts—in North West Europe, in Italy, in Burma, and in the Far East. That uses up an immense amount of shipping, and it is not possible to get in as much feeding stuffs as we should want for our meat and our poultry. I do not want to see a large part of the feeding stuffs that we give to farmers being used for poultry. Milk is much more important; it is more important too to keep up our meat herds. If one were to allow the price of poultry to rise without any control, the tendency would be to devote the feeding stuffs to poultry rather than to our more important milk and meat supply.

Mr. Stourton: Is not that what happens now? My right hon. and gallant Friend is assuming that poultry is being sold at controlled prices, whereas, as I have said, 95 per cent. of it is going to the black market.

Colonel Llewellin: I will deal with that point in a moment. But if I were to take off the Order I should be assenting to the position which my hon. Friend is, at any rate, right in deploring, if it is happening. I do not see my way to do that. The second thing which would be more likely to happen is that some of the poultry would be killed off to get these higher prices. I am leaving out of the picture at the moment those that are now getting the higher prices. The owners of the birds would be killing off some of the poultry which I want kept alive to keep up the egg supply. We should be inclined to lose our poultry just when the Minister of Agriculture and I are trying to give a little extra feeding stuffs to breeders of stock poultry so that they may once again build up our poultry stocks, and so allow people to have more fresh eggs than they have been able to enjoy during these years of war. This alleged black market is not as big as my hon. Friends would make out. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is very serious."] Will my hon. Friends give me some facts,

upon Which I can bring prosecutions, and not just make vague accusations that there is a huge black market? Anyone who wants to get rid of a price control Order will make those wild accusations. But I can assure the House that if hon. Members will give me any facts, I will see that the appropriate action is taken against people who are guilty of doing these things.

Mr. Mack: Surely the Minister knows that there is a considerable measure of truth in the specific statement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) about the method of this black market. I am sure that he will agree with that at any rate, whatever he says about the degree.

Colonel Llewellin: I know that the method which the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) described, of selling the birds for stock breeding is a way round the Maximum Prices Order. It was for that very reason that suddenly, on 1st November last year, we clamped clown for two months on any sales of birds for stock breeding, so as to control the turkey market and the poultry market at Christmas, when people like turkeys and poultry more than at any other time. But I cannot prevent these sales for the whole year. We must let poultry breed for some part of the year; otherwise, we shall not get any eggs at all. With regard to the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Mr. Stourton) I am afraid that we cannot at this stage take off this Maximum Prices Order. If anybody in the House or in the country who knows of those transactions will give me information, he will be doing his duty as a citizen of this country, and appropriate measures will be taken. I am as keen to stop the black market as any other Member of this House—I can asure hon. Members of that. On the other hand, I cannot canalise all this poultry as we can do with our meat and tea and various things, for the simple reason that, as the right hon. Baronet said, there is not enough. If you look at the home supplies of poultry that we have for the whole country, they provide less than one chicken, and a little more than one rabbit per person per year. There is not enough to run a rationing system on supplies so inadequate for the purpose as that.

Mr. Stourton: Then why control them?

Colonel Llewellin: Nevertheless, it is right, as I say, that we should not, in order to get rid of a black market, make everybody pay the prices that are nowadays paid in the black market itself.
I pass on to a few of the other remarks of the hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick). I believe that that side of the Ministry's activities which gives food advice has done a remarkably good job of work in this war. Too great praise cannot be given to those women who run the Food Advice Centres up and down the country, and who go to Women's Institutes and into thickly-populated centres, into towns and little villages right up to the north of Scotland and elsewhere. They are doing a grand job of work. But that is only part of it. For myself, I think that what we put out, or what is put out on our behalf, on the radio, is extremely good. I like the "Food flashes" that are put on, and put on freely for us, by the cinema proprietors in their programmes. They always seem to me to be short and to the point, and they are appreciated by those who see them. But my hon. Friend mainly referred to the "Food Facts" in the papers. It is extraordinary how many people collect these and bind them up in a book, which becomes their recipe book, and it is surprising how many letters we get asking questions on these "Food Facts," or asking for different recipes to be put in or for other advice to be given, week by week and month by month, as these things go on.

Mr. E. Walkden: Especially dried eggs.

Colonel Llewellin: That shows us at the Ministry that the efforts we are making to give people advice on how to deal with the different foodstuffs they can get now, is much appreciated. However, I will go as far with my hon. Friend as to say that I did see the advertisement, which was a kind of puzzle, put out in what I suppose was the Christmas spirit, and appearing in the papers just about Christmas time. I came very much to the same conclusion on that as my hon.

Friend. I remember that the only thing that pleased me about it was the question "Can you name two food dishes that begin with Q?" I named quince and quails, and they were the only ones which the author of the competition had thought of either. Apart from that, I do not think it was much good, and my hon. Friend may be glad to know that I had taken it up with the Department even before he put a Question down for me in the House, and I do not think we shall see quite that type of advertisement next Christmas.
I am very much obliged to my hon. Friends for allowing me this opportunity of giving these explanations to the House, and I only hope that they will think I have dealt adequately with the points they have raised.

Mr. E. Walkden: Would the Minister tell us now, specifically, why he cannot canalise poultry from the countryside as he canalises eggs, using the same machinery?

Colonel Llewellin: Yes, Sir. It is always known in food supply matters that it is quite easy to canalise what comes in at the ports. It is very much more difficult to canalise what you have to collect from a large number of individual farms, or individual tiny holdings or back gardens, where chickens are kept. We get the eggs, and we may as well be quite frank about it, by offering a higher price if they are sold to a packing station, than if they are sold to the general public. That is how we put in the Government subsidy, and the producer of the eggs gets more for his eggs if he sends them to the packing station than he would if he sold them on the ordinary market without going through the packing station. That is a very effective way of getting the eggs that I want for our distribution system.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Six Minutes after Three o'Clock, till Tuesday next, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.